The Accidental Therapist
by Lauralot
Summary: Sometimes you end up helping the villain, when all you intended was to bring him in. Sequel to Act Like We Are Fools. Rated for gore.
1. Going Back

Disclaimer: I write for pleasure, not profit, and I own nothing.

To those who've read my other stories, and were hoping for something a bit longer, I've got more sequels planned, and am hoping to get one up within the week.

To those who haven't read my other stories, you can still read this, but you might want a bit of backstory: Jonathan Crane's mind was damaged by the toxin in _Batman Begins_, and without taking medication to counteract it, he continues to feel the fear gas's effects. Crane and the Joker began a relationship, during the course of which they discovered that Harvey Dent was still alive, and revealed to Gotham that he was behind the murders Batman took the blame for. Shortly after, Crane and the Joker had a violent breakup, that would have ended in Crane's death had Batman not discovered him before it was too late. Crane was taken back to Arkham, the Joker remained free.

Any reviews are appreciated, and I hope you like the story!

* * *

Scarecrow lay the knives out on the table, some long, others short, some smooth, some serrated. Some of them were older; the blades spotted with rust that persisted no matter how much he scrubbed them—though he was less obsessive about it than his alter ego, he did like things to be orderly—others gleaming and nearly brand new. A few had twisted, curved blades, designed to go in ugly and come out even worse. He stroked his hand alongside them, smiling at the touch of the cold metal.

Tied to a chair seated at the table, his captive whimpered.

It was February now, a week or so past Valentine's Day. He hadn't bothered to keep up with the exact date. He barely slept anymore, and the days tended to run together.

He'd spent nearly two months in the hospital, recovering from the Joker's attack. Harley and the Joker had managed to escape, and deliver the video exposing the fact that Harvey Dent was still alive to GCN. He hadn't seen the news report, being in surgery to put his lung back together at the time, but he knew the plan had succeeded even before he knew which hospital he was at; he'd awoken to find a flood of reporters trying to beat their way past security and into his room. They hadn't gotten through. He wouldn't have spoken to them even if they had.

He tapped the handles of the knives, considering the options. The curved blades tended to inspire the best response, doubtless due to their striking appearance, but he'd used one on the last captive and besides, cutting was cutting when it came down to it. He moved his hand down to a paring knife, picked it up.

The woman broke into tears.

He'd been brought back to Arkham a week before Christmas, greeted by Isley and Tetch, who'd escaped the night he and the Joker attacked the asylum, but had been taken into custody again while he was recovering. Nigma was still at large somewhere, and he would sit with Isley as she watched the news, hoping for word of her lover, not even bothering to feign interest. His friends cared for him, he knew that, and likely they'd looked for signs of him the same way when he was gone, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to be concerned. That was before Scarecrow had come back, when it was just Jonathan Crane, all alone. And Jonathan couldn't care anymore. His mind seemed to have shut that function down, not wanting to be used or hurt again.

That first week in the asylum had been…acceptable. There was no Joker around, at least, and when the doctors tried to get him to speak about his experiences with the clown, he simply didn't answer. He didn't answer anything at all, actually, not the doctors' questions, not the threat of inmates who'd survived the massacre and were seeking revenge. Not even the statements of his friends, who were careful to keep their voices quiet and calm when they spoke to him though he could see the concern ever-growing in their eyes. He didn't want to hurt them with his silence, but he couldn't bring himself to speak. Somewhere deep inside of Jonathan Crane, where there were still emotions to be felt, he was afraid that if he said anything at all, everything that had happened would come spilling out again and it would hurt, even more than it already did.

He walked toward the woman, weapon in hand. She struggled against the rope holding her to the chair, though she'd already done that about a hundred times since she'd been secured and must know by now that it would do her no good.

He could have carried on that way, at Arkham, had it not been for Christmas morning. Yes, he'd been slowly wasting away—he hadn't eaten at all at the hospital, to the point that they had to feed him intravenously, and he'd only eaten when his friends forced him to at the asylum—and he spent the days about as active as a coma patient, but he could have coped, even with Scarecrow gone. It wasn't pleasant, wasn't much more than simply surviving, but the state he'd been in, the quality of his life hadn't mattered at all. It wasn't even that bad, by typical Arkham standards; he'd fully expected a beating from the guards upon returning, given that he'd helped to kill almost half the staff, but none came. He'd briefly flashed back to the Batman's words that he'd be safe in the asylum before brushing it off as coincidence. As if Batman would care what happened to the inmates he'd helped to put away.

But then there was Christmas morning, and waking up to find that damn rose.

He wound his fingers through her hair, slowly, pulling her head back to expose her throat. Her hair was long, and had once been a clean, bleach blonde before it got so bloody when he'd beaten her over the head to subdue her. One wouldn't think that a man who was rapidly approaching the low weight of an actual scarecrow would be able to take down anyone, male or female, adult or child, but all it required was the element of surprise, really. Even in a city like Gotham, the people were more than willing to turn a blind eye to the things that could hurt them.

He lifted the knife and raised his arm over her head, at such an angle that she could watch as the blade passed over, coming down close to her throat.

He'd woken up on Christmas morning hours early, content to lie there for the next few hours and pretended he couldn't hear the idiotic instrumental Christmas carols playing at low volume through the speakers. It helped the patients relax, apparently. Had he put forth the effort to care, he would have liked to track down the inmates who enjoyed it and show them why he was called the master of fear.

Falling back asleep was out of the question. It was hard enough to sleep in the first place, now that his nightmares were worse than ever, and by the time he managed to get to sleep, it would be time to eat breakfast. Or rather, sit there until Isley's coaxing got him to take a bite or two. So he lay on his side, staring at the wall for an hour or so, before the position became uncomfortable and he rolled over, to find something lying beside him on the pillow.

He knew what it was before he put the glasses on, he could tell by the scent, but he kept praying that he was wrong, even as he slid the frames on his face and the room came into focus. A rose lay on the pillow, a single yellow rose with a note attached to the stem, reading only "J."

The woman tried twisting away from the blade, and he yanked on her hair to keep her still, hard enough to make her cry out. He moved in a way to keep the knife in her view until the last second, bringing it down to rest gently against her neck. She sobbed, and the sob turned to a scream as he dragged the dull end of the knife across her skin.

The screaming stopped a moment later, when she realized she hadn't been stabbed. Her eyes flicked up to him, face terrified and confused, and he let the knife dropped, nicking shallowly against her wrist. Blood rose to the surface and she screamed again.

He would have stayed at Arkham, were in not for that rose. The sight of it only shattered his security, removed any distance he'd managed to put between himself and the pain of the betrayal. It was like being back in that parking lot again, bloody and beaten, seeing the Joker smirking down at him and unable to express the rage and the hurt that he felt. He'd been reduced to a sobbing, helpless mess, much like the pathetic captive he was tormenting now, and Scarecrow hadn't returned yet. Left there panicking, with no one to talk to, he'd tried to kill himself.

His first thought had been to slash himself with the thorns of the rose, only to realize they'd been clipped. Shoving the stem of it into his eye socket wouldn't work either, it had far too much give and would only break halfway through, leaving him missing an eye and still very much alive.

Finally, he'd decided to leave the rose out of the equation entirely, and just open up his veins with his fingernails.

Easier said than done. Being a nail biter, he had almost no cutting edge to speak of, and tore up his hands just as badly as he did his arms, scraping the skin over and over for hours until blood blossomed in the cuts. He'd just gotten it deep enough to do serious damage when a nurse had come in to do morning rounds, and rendered all his effort useless by summoning orderlies to rush him to the infirmary.

His captive was moaning, making quiet, animalistic sounds that he recognized as words, after a moment. She wasn't enunciating well at all. Terrified or not, that irritated him, and to silence her he brought the flat of the blade across the bridge of her nose, pressing the tip of the knife just barely into her skin as he finished. She went so still he thought she'd fainted, for a moment.

It had been the nasogastric tubing that brought Scarecrow back.

He'd deserted Jonathan for a time after the attack, out of disgust at first, at the way Jonathan had refused to heed his warning about facing the Joker. The body they shared was in for a world of hurt, and he definitely didn't want to be around for that. And once the attack was over, both the body and mind were still in bad, bad way, so he kept his distance.

After the botched attempt at suicide, however, Jonathan had stopped any method of caring for himself, refusing to move, or to sleep, until exhaustion took him, or even to eat. And that had led to the force feeding. That wasn't the proper name, Scarecrow was fairly sure, but that's what it had been. And even that wouldn't have drawn him out, had the tubing they put through Jonathan's nose and into his stomach not been slightly larger than the passage they tried putting it through.

"Slightly larger" didn't sound so serious, when considering things like trying to move a piece of furniture through a doorway. All one had to do there was tilt it a little, and push. So what if it scraped the sides of the door frame? It would only leave a few scratches, and those could be repaired. Replace couch with plastic tubing, on the other hand, and doorway with nasal passages, and it became a lot more cringe-inducing. Scarecrow, watching from a distance, where the pain couldn't reach, could have sworn he heard the cartilage crack as Jonathan lay there, silent to the bone, screaming on the inside. He gagged once, and was made to drink water so the process could continue, but besides that he had no reaction, and his stoicism was enough to convince Scarecrow that things were stable enough to come back. And beyond that, Jonathan needed him.

Leaving the asylum hadn't been too hard; no one bothered to restrain him anymore, or sedate him. What was the use? And no one kept a close guard on the patients who wouldn't move without someone dragging them. He'd pulled the tubing out, biting back screams as it slid through, nearly choking once he'd gotten it out of his stomach, and whatever they were feeding him through it dripped into his windpipe. The not quite asphyxiation made him panic a bit, and he fled, without so much as stopping to get his mask or the pills necessary to counteract the brain damage done that night in Arkham when Batman had forced him to inhale the fear toxin.

He regretted that, looking back. Without the medication, there were periods like this when things were calm and he was in control, but there were also times when the toxin hallucinations came back, and he lost that domination to Jonathan, who didn't hold up well under the pressure. And it seemed as of late, that Jonathan's periods of control were becoming more and more frequent. They'd had to come up with some rather creative ways to combat that.

His captive was speaking again. He glanced down at her, taking a moment to listen to what she was saying.

"—seen you on the news. Crane, r-right? You worked at Arkham?" Her voice was shaking, attempt to sound calm utterly useless. And no, stupid bitch, he didn't work at Arkham, he ran it. Not being able to tell Scarecrow from his alter ego, that he could understand, but demeaning his position…he felt tempted to ram the knife into her mouth, to the back of her stupid little throat.

But he wanted to see where she was going with this, so he nodded.

"M-my name's A-Amanda," she said. "Amanda Shearer. And look, my husband, h-his family's got money. L-lots of it, and—"

He zoned her out, her words shifting back into white noise. The bribes were boring enough, each of his victims apparently had a billionaire second cousin or some such nonsense, but it was the name telling that really annoyed him. One viewing of _Silence of the Lambs _and everybody thought all they had to do to subdue the big bad psychopath was to exchange names, to make themselves be seen as people, not objects. Only he did see her as a person already, and that's precisely why he was doing this. He'd found the best way to deal with Jonathan's inner turmoil was to take it out on others, convince himself that he was better than these idiots at least.

Jonathan had always been too interested in his little chemicals, and studying their effects. He'd forgotten that all one needed to be terrifying was to show the ability to cause pain, and then build up the anticipation of that pain. That's what he'd been doing, in the hopes that it would pull the fragmented bits of Jonathan's mind back together, and for his own amusement. This girl was seconds from passing out, and he'd only cut her once, and then, just barely. It felt so good, watching her fear. His last two victims had died this way, hearts giving out, before he did anything above moderate damage. Of course, one of them had been older, and one obese, so he couldn't conclude it was their ill health or his influence that had pushed them over the edge. That's why he'd chosen a young woman this time. That, and she'd looked so infuriatingly happy when he'd first seen her. Bitch.

He brought the knife down on her face this time, just gently enough to hurt without cutting. _How would she handle her pretty little face being carved up? _he wondered, pushing down a little more. Blood welled around the point of impact, mixing with her tears and running down her face, pinkish.

Amanda Shearer screamed, and he felt an acceleration in his heart rate that was not entirely excitement, accompanied by a twinge of anxiety. _Oh hell. _Jonathan again? And it seemed only a few hours ago that his other half had been in control. He lowered the knife, and realized she'd stopped crying, staring past him, eyes wide. _Dissociation?_ he wondered. Such a severe reaction would be rare for a well-adjusted person, so early on. Perhaps she had some past trauma, or a mental illness, or—

"Crane."

He turned, slowly, to find the Caped Crusader standing in the doorway, where his captive had been staring. Behind him, Amanda Shearer burst into tears again, but this time they sounded relieved. He thought he heard an "Oh thank God!" but once again, she wasn't enunciating well enough for him to be sure. And before he came up with a plan of attack, he felt his heart race, and the room began to shake around him, knife slipping out of his hand and clattering to the floor as he lost control.

Jonathan Crane took one look at the Batman, and he ran.

* * *

Amanda Shearer had clung to him as if her life depended on in, refusing to let the police take her until he told her, in the gentlest possible way he could make his voice while keeping it disguised, that they would keep her safe, and he had to go after the man who'd tormented her. He couldn't imagine how that exchange would have gone if he'd still been Gotham's public enemy number two, and had to convince her to walk outside on her own, so he wouldn't have to risk arrest. There were times, like this one, when he was almost happy that the truth behind Harvey Dent's murders had been revealed. Then he caught himself feeling relief at something that had made morale even lower for the citizens of Gotham, and made life hell for the GPD once the media had found out, and buried the relief, disgusted with himself.

Batman was supposed to be more than just a man, above petty things like caring if his job was easy.

Of course, he was supposed to be above things like revenge as well, and he couldn't help but reflect as he reentered the construction site—what was it with villains and unfinished buildings, anyway?—that while Jonathan Crane had always been mad, it was _his _actions that had completely shattered the man's grip on reality. It might have happened even if he hadn't poisoned him, but there was no time to reflect over what could have been, much as there was no time for remorse.

He stepped back into the skeleton of a building, to track down a man more than likely armed, and absolutely dangerous. The odds of this ending without a fight were low, and he knew better than to underestimate Jonathan Crane. He'd made that mistake once before, and he still had the scars on his face—though they were faint, he'd let Alfred stitch those—to remind him never to do it again.

* * *

Moving at all was difficult during a panic attack, due to hyperventilation. Running was nearly impossible, but run Jonathan did, as fast as his malnourished legs could carry him, ignoring the ever-constricting feeling in his chest. The hallucinations were harder to ignore, given that in his current state, it was hard to remember they weren't real, and not exacerbated a panic attack like having a flock of crows descend on you, tearing at the skin. God, he hated crows. Why couldn't his grandmother have trained less horrific birds to attack him, like finches?

_Don't focus on it_, he commanded himself, trying for that reassuring calm Scarecrow's voice always had, and not quite hitting it. Scarecrow had left, for the moment, he tended not to hang around when the hallucinations started up. Anyway, comfort wasn't important at the moment, what mattered was pulling himself back together before the Batman could return. He remembered their last encounter all too vividly, that in itself an indication of how serious the matter was; it was usually hard to remember things, or at least recall them correctly, when he was hallucinating. And he doubted the Batman had forgiven him for the whole face biting incident.

He managed to stay upright until he got to the room where he'd been keeping his supplies, where he slept, on the rare occasions sleep took him. This particular winter had been frigid enough to halt construction on this building, so he'd be able to stay, uninterrupted, for a few weeks. Until now, anyway. If he got out of this, he'd have to find a new home.

He collapsed to his knees in the doorway, smiling for a second at the pain the impact caused. Then the crows were back, and the moment was over. Shaking, he crawled to the center of the room, where he kept his few possessions, besides the knives that had been left downstairs. A few boxes of food, a notebook, a jacket, and the nail gun.

Pain, he'd found, kept the toxin's effects at bay, gave him the focus that brought Scarecrow back out. He'd started with the knives, and his body was really little more than a mass of scar tissue anymore, aside from his face. He hadn't touched the face; that would remind him too much of a certain someone he never wanted to think of again. Besides, his lips were torn and bleeding enough, both from biting and dehydration. He drank about as often as he ate, which was never unless he had to.

But like an addict building up a tolerance, the effectiveness of the knives had started to lessen. He'd had to cut deeper each time, eventually targeting the most sensitive areas such as palms of his hands and the skin between the fingers. Which worked for a while, but after a time he'd had to abandon the blades entirely. Hence, the nail gun.

He'd never shot the nails into his body, so much as laid the gun alongside an arm or leg and let them tear off the top layers of his skin as they fired out. However, like the tolerance to the knives, that had become less effective lately, and besides, Bat-induced panic reduced logic even more than ordinary hallucinatory panic. So this time he laid his palm across the barrel of the nail gun, and with his other hand, fired.

Only about a minute later did Jonathan realize that had been a very bad idea.

The first minute, the pain made thought almost impossible. It was hell on Earth, but Jonathan welcomed it, because it hurt too much for the hallucinations to matter anymore. It was hard to focus on shaking walls and demon birds with two and a half inches of steel poking through the bones, vessels, and sinew of one's hand. He didn't enjoy pain, but in moments like these he could see how some did; for that one beautiful minute, the world returned to the way it was supposed to be, and it was like seeing everything for the first time, so vivid, so _real. _And even physical agony was preferable to being out of his mind. Miserable, but not scary.

But that first, sudden wave of pain faded, and to his quickly increasing horror, _he _did not fade with it. For whatever reason, be it Batman or just bad luck, for once the focus the suffering gave was not enough to force Scarecrow back out. It was still Jonathan, alone, and the pain was becoming less helpful, rapidly. And that was when he reflected that impaling his hand might have been a rather huge mistake.

If Scarecrow had taken charge, he might have focused on all the complications such an injury gave; the risk of infection, the fact that it would heal wrongly unless they sought help, the way it would make grasping weapons in the left hand near impossible. Jonathan was only focused on the pain. It was agony, like fire under his skin, worst at the actual wound, but extending all the way up to the elbow. There was blood leaking out of the injury on either side, though not much, and the shaft of the nail, he realized, feeling sick, was glistening with blood and bits of his insides. He tried moving his fingers, just a bit, and felt the shattered pieces of bone _shift _inside him, the pain so bad he had to bite down on the other hand to keep from crying out. Shaking, he closed his eyes and, feeling the lesser pain of the crows' assault on his body, discovered that the hallucinations had come back.

There was a sound of footsteps, and he opened his eyes, finding himself face to face with the Joker.

He appeared the same way he had the last time Jonathan had seen him under chemical effects; the black makeup of his eyes turned to dark voids in the face, white paint like dead, bleached skin, the scars reopened and the lipstick coating them now blood. The sight of him made Jonathan forget the pain, shaking harder than ever, too paralyzed by fright to even move as the Joker knelt down beside him, glancing at his impaled hand. He smirked, facial wounds leaking red.

"_Aw_, Jonny had an _acc_ident. Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

He reached out, and Jonathan pulled away, losing his balance and falling over. He just avoided landing on the injury by twisting to the side at the last second, shoulder slamming hard into the concrete. He got back up, wincing, and shuffled backwards, good hand up to defend himself. As if that would do anything at all. "S-stay away from me."

The corners of his mutilated mouth turned down, in a mockery of offense. "Nice. Don't let me stop your great self-destruction. This is what I get for, uh, trying to help a friend, huh? Fine, crucify yourself."

"You're _not_ my friend." _What the hell does he want? _As if he hadn't gotten his revenge and then some after their last fight, he had to taunt him when he was injured and scared? And for that matter, how did the Joker know he was here to begin with? He was like the serial killer from a horror movie, always able to track targets down no matter where they ran. He was a fucking nightmare.

The Joker waved a finger back and forth in his face. "You know, it's one thing to say that it's over between us, and quite another to pretend we never happened." His voice dropped into a lower register, reverberating through Jonathan's body like music did when one stood too close to a speaker, making him shudder. "I gotta say, Jonny, it makes me angry when you lie about us like that. Do I _need_ to remind you what happens when you make me mad?"

Heart racing, he shuffled back again, good hand grasping the doorway to pull himself up. The unfinished wall cut into his palm as he gripped it. _Great. So now it's _both _hands. _He glared at the Joker, trying not to let his terror show. Not that it mattered. Joker could probably smell fear. "Leave me _alone_."

Making a horrible rasping sound that was supposed to be a laugh, the Joker stood, stretching. Around him the purple coat shifted around as if blown out by the wing flutters of those damn crows. "Not gonna happen, sorry. Just 'cause _you _wanna ignore everything we had doesn't mean I'm gonna desert my friend in the middle of his mental breakdown."

_Jonathan. Why the _fuck _are you still here, idiot? You need to be running right now, have you forgotten the Batman's after us?_

Anger in his tone or not, hearing the Scarecrow's voice nearly made him cry in relief. It was like the day he'd returned in the asylum, after two months of silence, giving Jonathan the power to escape. It was like being reunited with an old friend, one who always knew what to do in times of crisis, and how to cheer him up. _I'm sorry, but there's a major problem here, too._ He waited for Scarecrow to take note of his surrounding, tell him what to do.

Inside of him, Scarecrow sighed. _He's not _here, _Jonathan, _he said slowly, sounding as if he were trying to keep from shouting._ It's only in your head._

It was like a slap to the face. _What?_

He could feel Scarecrow's patience snap. _You're hal. Lu. Ci. Na. Ting. Idiot. What the hell do you want me to do, fight your imaginary friend for you?_

"Oh, I'm imaginary now. What, like the voice in your head's got room to criticize?" the Joker asked.

Jonathan blinked. Had he spoken out loud?

_Jesus Christ. Pull yourself together, Jonathan. There's an angry Bat headed our way and I think that's more pressing than a hallucinatory lover's spat, don't you?_

He let go of the doorframe long enough to straighten his glasses, staring at the Joker. He didn't look hallucinatory. Then again, neither did the crows.

_Jonathan, _focus. _We need to get out of here._

The Joker snorted, blood spraying from his mouth. "Yeah, good luck with that. You could never get away from him even before you went off the deep end."

"Shut _up_." There was no way this was a hallucination; toxin-damaged or not, his mind couldn't be this sadistic to him. The combination of fear and anger was almost enough to overshadow the pain in his hand. Almost.

"Crane."

He went rigid, turning his attention to the doorway on the opposite side of the room. He couldn't make out features in the dark—odd, that he could see the Joker so clearly in the same conditions—but the silhouette was unmistakable.

The Batman.

_Oh, fuck._

Joker threw back his head and howled with laughter. "Speak of the devil…"

_RUN, Jonathan!_

He didn't need to be told twice, sprinting as if he was being pursued by the forces of hell. Really, there wasn't much difference between the Bat and Satan anyway.

* * *

He didn't run straight after Crane at once, instead taking the time to scan the room, see if there was any hint as to how well-armed his opponent could be, a sign of what weapons, if any, he may have on his person. Crane hadn't been running in the direction of the stairs, so he had no way of escape beyond doubling back. Besides, he got the feeling this wasn't going to be his easiest of fights, so there was no point in rushing into it.

He reflected on what he'd just witnessed and held in a sigh. The incidence reports at Arkham regarding Crane's escape hadn't mentioned any stolen antipsychotics, as the man usually took when he broke out, but Bruce had almost hoped—much to Batman's disgust—that Crane had gotten them somewhere else, somehow. Certainly there had been reports of pharmaceutical companies robbed since the doctor's escape, though in Gotham, robberies of any kind were hardly a rare occurrence. But cunning as Jonathan Crane was in his right mind, Batman couldn't help but imagine the coming confrontation would be much easier if the doctor was lucid. The mad ones were always the most elusive, it seemed, and talking to himself the way he'd heard Crane doing as he came up the hall definitely qualified him as mad.

He learned little from his search of the room, beyond that Crane had apparently been subsisting off of Ramen for the past two months—uncooked, it seemed, as there was nothing that could heat water in the room—and that apart from a nail gun lying on the floor and whatever he might be carrying with him, his only weapons were the knives left downstairs. By the nail gun there was a trail of blood splatters on the floor, leading across the room and out the door Crane had run through. He could guess where the blood had come from.

_Well, this can't go too badly, can it?_ he wondered, following after the trail of blood. After all, Crane was wounded, malnourished, and probably too far gone to know the days of the week, let alone fight effectively. _It might not be too difficult. _Sure. And the Joker might make a full recovery and become the next Gandhi.

_

* * *

_

You dropped the nail gun, you idiot.

_I'm sorry._

_We've got no weapon now. And no way to get out of here except past the Batman. God _damn _it._

_I'm sorry._

_You should be._

Jonathan didn't bother to respond that time. Nothing he said would make a difference, he knew from experience. Scarecrow was his best friend in the world, but with the worst temper, and the only way to deal with it was to let him calm down on his own. Which, due to their current situation, didn't seem likely to happen any time soon. He didn't have time for apologies anyway. The throbbing in his hand made running even more difficult to keep up than it had been, and the crows, along with the way the floor seemed to move beneath him weren't helping in the least.

Nor was the Joker.

"You think they'll put you in the same cell at Arkham, or give you a new one this time?" he asked, running alongside Jonathan, flecks of blood from his scars trailing behind him as he moved.

"Shut up."

"Hey, it's a serious question. Gotta know where you're at if I wanna send you more flowers, after all."

The mention of the flower brought back the memory of Christmas morning as though it had happened only seconds ago. He felt the hurt, sorrow, and humiliation all over again, and mixed with his fear, anger, and pain, it was overwhelming. He almost screamed. "Shut. Up."

"Tou_chy_ today, aren't we? Look, I know you're pissed that Batsy's about to kick your ass, but don't take it out on me, kitten."

"Don't call me kitten." He gritted his teeth. "And you're going to get caught too, so you can wipe that stupid smirk off your face."

Joker laughed. "Somehow, that really doesn't concern me, Jonny."

Jonathan felt his foot catch on something lying across the floor, a beam, it felt like. Balance thrown, he was falling forward, hands out to keep himself from hitting the floor full force. Only he'd forgotten the nail in his hand, and the impact seemed to drive it further in, making him scream. Tears came to his eyes, but much like the last time, he refused to let them out. Holding his injured hand to his chest, he lay on the cement, screams fading into moans, and wished more than ever that he was dead. In retrospect, the nail to the hand had been a really stupid move.

"Why'd you choose the hand anyway?" Joker asked, standing over him. "Got a Messiah complex now or something? 'Cause Jesus actually got nailed through the wrists."

Gingerly, Jonathan pulled himself back to his knees. The room was spinning worse than ever, probably due to disorientation from the pain. "I swear to God, if you don't shut up, I'll tear this damn thing out and shove it through your eye." He couldn't, though. That would move the bleeding from minimal to severe.

"There are worse things than bleeding out, you know." As if reading his mind, the Joker pointed a shoe at the impalement injury. "In olden times, they used bloodletting to treat illness. 'Course, it didn't do much, but it did feel good. Endorphin rush and all, and enough bleeding causes euphoria—"

Having no weapons, Jonathan improvised by pulling off his glasses and throwing them at the Joker. The clown dodging, giggling, and he heard the glasses hit the floor some distance away. Fantastic. Now he was injured, terrified, and half-blind. "Go _away_."

"Well, if _that's_ how you're going to be, then maybe I—hey, we've got company!" He pointed, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet in excitement, at the Batman entering the room.

_Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. _And because his life wasn't miserable enough already, apparently, the hallucinogenic effects of the toxin let him see the Batman perfectly, though his vision should be too blurred to do so. He appeared the way he had last time Jonathan had seen him while hallucinating; enormous, fanged, cape turned to huge, horrible wings, darkness seeping from the mouth. Whimpering, he shuffled backwards, realizing only when his shoulders hit the wall that he'd moved into a corner. The Batman advanced, and from under one of his boots, there came a sound of breaking glass. He stopped, looked down.

"You…you broke my glasses," Jonathan stammered, and broke into tears.

* * *

Things could never go easily, could they? Just once, Bruce would have liked for a criminal to give himself up calmly, let himself be cuffed and escorted to the authorities without any trouble. Batman craved the fight, and Bruce did as well, but there was only so much he could take before it seemed fruitless. Pounding someone's head into a wall gave satisfaction, yes, satisfaction he was guilty to feel, but it was also a reminder that he couldn't solve everything. He may be able to subdue the forces of evil, but he wasn't able to stop them from hurting people again.

_Or hurting themselves_, he reflected, glancing down at Crane's bleeding hand and the nail shoved through it, steel glistening with blood. He felt disgust and something dangerously close to pity. He couldn't afford to feel pity for the man; the last time he'd been stupid enough to do so, he'd let his guard down and narrowly avoided having half his face ripped off. "They're only glasses."

"I _need _them."

Incredible, really, how the tears had been brought about by something so insignificant, rather than the pain or the pursuit. Incredible and depressing. "They'll give you a new pair at Arkham."

"I'm _not_ going back there." He straightened up, almost managing the dignity he always held when sane, even when he'd been living on the streets for weeks. He was too terrified to quite manage that scathing look though, and the crying detracted a bit.

He held in a sigh. "Yes, you are."

Crane shook his head, eyes shut. "_Shut up._"

"You need to go back. Look at yourse—"

"I wasn't talking to _you_." He opened his eyes, focusing on something past Batman. "He will not. He doesn't do that, so shut the hell up."

Wonderful. As if he wasn't unstable enough already, he was also hallucinating. Bruce had hoped he'd only been talking to himself earlier, not someone who wasn't there. This was shaping up to be all kinds of fun. "Crane."

Crane's eyes moved to him, body pressing even harder back against the wall. "Stay away from me."

"I'm not going to hurt you—" Crane laughed at this. Batman ignored him, and went on. "I just want to take you back." He tried taking a step forward, and Crane half-screamed.

"_Don't _come n-near me." His voice was nearly that commanding, condescending tone he had when lucid, though the slight shake gave it away. "I swear to God, I'll make you regret it."

_With what? _he almost asked, but if Crane did have a weapon concealed somewhere, he didn't want to provoke him into bringing it out. "Look, I don't want to fight. You're injured."

"As if that would stop _you_." His eyes darted back and forth like a caged animal looking for an escape, though by now he must have realized the only way out was a fight.

"We've had this conversation before. I don't want to hurt you."

"I don't _care_," Crane said, and before he could ask what he meant, the doctor was staring off into the distance again, muttering under his breath. "I don't care, I don't care, I _don't_—fine, why?"

He decided to hazard another step forward. And, as there was no response to that, several more.

"You are not." He was shaking more than ever, only now he looked angry at the same time. Batman couldn't imagine the other end of the conversation and wasn't sure he wanted to. "You are _not._ That's not true."

He took advantage of Crane's distraction to close the space between them, kneel down beside him and observe his condition. He was shaking, breathing fast and shallow, and obviously agitated. And while those could well be only symptoms of madness and fear, they were also signs of shock. He had no definite way to tell the difference, only the knowledge that shock could kill, and quickly. _When it rains, it pours._ "How do you feel?" he asked softly, voice more Bruce than Batman.

Crane went rigid, turned to face him. The realization that there was no longer a safe distance between him nearly made him faint. Whatever semblance of sanity he'd been managing to show dissolved, expression wild and terrified. "No. Nonononono, leave me alone."

"Are you thirsty? Or feel like you're going to be sick?" Both signs of shock, and helpful in determining whether or not he needed to speed things up, but Crane was in no state to answer. Which, potentially, was a sign of shock itself.

"Go away, I won't do anything, I won't hurt anyone else, please, just go away." He moved as if to stand up, and Batman put a hand of his shoulder to keep him in place. He jerked away as if he'd been burned. "Leave me alone, _please, _I won't do it again, I promise." His eyes jerked from the gloved hand holding him secure to somewhere over on the other side of the room. "Get _him_, he's worse, he's _never_ going to stop, get him."

"Who?" He shifted his hand up slightly, fingers brushing against Crane's neck. The man whimpered and tried to pull away, but otherwise did not react. He was freezing. Of course, it was freezing in here, but once again, sign of shock. They needed to get out of here fast, or at least have the injury attended to.

"Don't touch me," Crane whispered, crying again. His tears slid down his face and onto the glove, and Batman moved his hand back to Crane's shoulder. "He doesn't like it when you touch me, the last time you touched me he almost _killed_ me, and he will this time if you do it anymore."

"He's not here."

"He said he loved me," he muttered, staring down at his shoes. "He gave me a rose and he said he loved me and I thought he meant it. He said he wouldn't let anything bad happen to me, he said I was beautiful, he said that he loved me. I thought he meant it. He didn't mean it. He didn't mean it at all. He didn't mean it and he tried to kill me and I wish he had."

"Hush." He took his hand off Crane in order to reach back, pull the cape from the Batsuit. Insulating from the cold was the first step in treating shock, but he had no idea how he was going to get Crane to lay down on it, let alone allow him to attend to the injury. "You need to lie down."

"No," he muttered, watching as Batman spread the cape on the floor. "No no no."

"It'll help you."

"I don't _want _help." He looked somewhere over Batman's shoulder again. "Leave me alone."

"Well, you need it." Gently he took hold of Crane's shoulders once more, easing him back with care to avoid brushing his hand against anything, further aggravating the wound. Apart from going stiff and muttering under his breath more than ever, Crane didn't fight him. Once he was lying on his back, Batman wrapped the rest of the cape around him, taking care to leave his arms free. It wasn't until he tried elevating his legs to rest on a nearby pile of boards that Crane protested, trying to pull away. "I'm not going to hurt you. Can I see your hand?"

"No." He pulled his arm away, leaving blood drops on the cape. "It hurts."

"I know. I want to help. Which I can't do unless you let me see."

He shook his head rapidly, like a dog trying to shake water out of its coat.

"If that isn't taken care of, it could get infected. Do you want to get sick?" _Sicker._ Part of him wanted to shout from frustration at the ordeal, but against his better nature, he was also feeling sympathy. He hadn't tried searching Crane—given how he'd reacted last time, doing it again may well kill him—but he didn't seem to have any weapons, and he was in no state to make an attack, even if he had. If he made a move, he could be subdued easily.

"But it'll _hurt_," he whimpered, sounding so much like a petulant child it was hard to remember he was an amoral, homicidal maniac.

"It'll hurt more if it goes septic. Let me see."

"Don't hurt me."

"I'll try not to." Carefully, he took hold of Crane's wrist, lifting his arm as he unhooked the first aid kit from his utility belt. "This is going to sting," he cautioned, pouring disinfectant over the wound.

Crane hissed, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, but his eyes went clearer than they'd been since the encounter began. "Don't forget the other side."

"You're lucid?"

"For now."

"I won't forget." Gently, he turned his hand over and poured. Crane winced. "I need to keep this up for three minutes, at least."

"Why are you helping me?" He looked confused, but grounded, unlikely his earlier expression of mad bewilderment.

"I don't want to hurt you. I just want to bring you to justice." He continued pouring the disinfectant, holding Crane's arm away from his body so the excess wouldn't fall on him. It could irritate skin, and the last thing he needed was a psychopath in even more pain.

Crane stared at him, face guarded against the fear that had been so evident minutes ago. "You fascinate me."

He didn't respond, and went on irrigating the wound. By the time he'd reached for the gauze, Crane seemed to have adjusted to the sensation, and lost whatever hold on sanity that had given him, back to muttering to himself, eyes following someone—or thing—that Batman couldn't see. Packing gauze into the space between his skin and the nail was nearly impossible, which he'd expected, but holding his hand still enough to wrap around the nail was harder than it should have been; there was the shivering, and Crane's body kept making tiny jerks as if being bitten or scratched all over. "I'm taking you back to Arkham once this is over," Batman informed him, bracing himself for a violent reaction.

"I _can't_. Nononononono, I can't. Don't make me go back there, you said you didn't want to hurt me, don't take me back, _don't._" His other hand grabbed Batman's wrist, jerking back when he felt the spikes there.

"You need to go back there. You need help."

"I _can't_. You don't understand." He grabbed Batman's wrist again, this time above the spikes. "I'm afraid," he whispered, teeth gritted, and insanity or not, Bruce could tell it pained him to say.

"Sometimes you have to do scary things to improve your situation." He wrapped closer to the nail and Crane shuddered, that spark of sanity coming back into his eyes.

"You don't understand," he repeated. "It's not just the hospital. The Joker—he can get in and out whenever he wants. He's gotten into my cell, and I _can't _go back to a place where I can see him again. I _can't. _Last time he showed up I tried to kill myself. I wish I had. I wish he'd killed me that night, it would have been better and then I wouldn't have to live with this hurt, wouldn't have to live with him, he's still here, he's always around and I can't make him _leave_."

Bruce really wished the lucid moments would last longer than a minute. It would make the conversation so much easier. "Well, you can't stay like this. Look at what happens when you're not being treated. Don't you want to get better?"

"Arkham doesn't help, it just locks you up forever and ever and hurts you and shocks you and shoves pills down your throat and tubes up your nose and electrodes onto your head. You don't go to there to get better, you go there to rot."

Batman looked at him, dispassionate, seeing a heartless criminal who needed to be taken off the streets, for his own good as much as the safety of the city. He would have been perfectly fine with picking Crane up and ignoring his protests, putting him into the Batmobile and driving him back to Arkham, where he'd be the staff's problem. At least until he broke out again. But Bruce, while seeing all that, could also see wasted potential, a brilliant man who'd gone insane, genius being used for evil when it could have been used for so much good. He wished he would recover, as he wished all the villains would recover, and that was the worst thing about being Batman. No matter how many times he apprehended criminals, he couldn't make them change.

"Do you even _try _to cooperate with the doctors?" he asked, thinking of the reports of resistance in all the rogue's Arkham files. "Or is the asylum unhelpful because you don't want to be helped?" He taped the gauze into place, moving his hands just as Crane reached up, unexpectedly, and pushed on the nail. He groaned, face twisting with pain.

"Don't do that!" Batman pushed his hand away. "You'll make it worse."

"I need the pain," Crane said, through clenched teeth. "I need the focus."

"What you need is to quit before you push a fragment of bone into a vein and end up puncturing the walls of your heart. I can restrain you, if you don't stop."

"Fine. I won't do it again." His voice sped, as if trying to say as much as possible in the limited time the lucidity would last. "Don't take me back to Arkham. I don't care what you do to me, just don't take me back there."

"I have to."

"You don't _have to _anything. You're not a cop, you aren't bound by the law. And even if you were, in a city like Gotham that doesn't mean a damn thing."

"The Joker will track you down if he wants to, regardless of where you are. The asylum's not the problem, he is. And do you want to spend your life afraid of him? The asylum can help you get through that experience."

He laughed, the sound humorless. "I _highly_ doubt that. Arkham couldn't help a chronic masturbator to a box of tissues. Anyway, it's more than just the Joker. It's everything about the place. Don't take me back. Kill me for all I care, but don't take me back."

"I wouldn't kill you." He felt offense, that Crane would think him willing to commit such an act. "I'm a judge, not an executioner."

"They're not that different."

"They're different enough. Can you walk, or do I need to carry you?"

His good hand closed around Batman's wrist again. "_Don't._ Please. I'll do whatever you want, I'll leave Gotham and never ever ever come back, just _don't._"

_Christ. _Fights, he could handle. Plans to destroy the city and all he held dear, fine. Being stuck in an overly elaborate death trap with seconds to get out and no chance of escape, perfectly acceptable. But emotional breakdowns? That was a job for someone else. Too bad there was no one else. "All right, I'll carry you."

"Please, please please _please _don't." He buried his face against Batman's shoulder and sobbed as he was lifted. "Please. Stop."

"You _need _to go back." He tried to ignore the way Crane's legs kept kicking into his side.

"Fine, take me back, just _put. Me. Down._"

"What?"

"Put me down, put me down, please, I'll be good, I swear, just put me down. He used to carry me like this, when he and Harley broke me out, and when he took me out in the rain and we kissed and I thought he loved me and I loved him, he used to carry me like this, just like this, just like—"

"All right." He set him down, gently, holding tightly onto his arm. "You can walk, then?"

He nodded, cape sliding down his shoulders. Batman readjusted it with his free hand, reminded of the way Gordon had helped him with his father's jacket, long ago. If Crane was in the slightest bit reassured by the gesture, he didn't show it.

"Come on, then."

He wasn't quite dragging his feet, but it was close. "Do we have to go there?"

"You said that you would." He put force on Crane's arm, not enough to be painful, but enough to get him moving.

"I was hoping you'd forgotten."

"No. Wait." He bent down, picked up the glasses. "The frames aren't broken, just the lenses. You can keep these." He knocked out the broken glass before he handed them over. The last thing Crane needed was something with a cutting edge.

Crane took it in his shaking hand, silent.

"You're welcome."

"Some things you do aren't horrible." he muttered, demeanor suggesting it hurt to say.

_Close enough._

* * *

"Nice car, huh?" Joker asked, from behind the passenger seat of the Batmobile.

"Shut _up. _And yes." He might appreciate it more if he wasn't panicked and strapped down, but it was nice. As nice as what was essentially a tank could be, anyway.

The Batman glanced over at him from the driver's seat. "What?"

"Your car is nice."

They rode in silence for a few minutes, Jonathan trying to inconspicuously pull at the straps. It was hard, given that he couldn't move one hand at all, not without horrific pain—which wasn't so bad, it gave him focus, so he'd been moving it every few minutes or so—but he thought he'd got the hang of it. If he could just get loose by the time they reached Arkham, maybe he could make some sort of escape. He'd have to distract the Bat first, of course, possibly by—

"Don't." There was a hand over his own, halting his movement.

"I wasn't—"

"I know what you were doing."

"Busted," the Joker muttered, giggling.

"Be _quiet._"

He withdrew his hand. "Is Arkham really that terrible?"

Jonathan tried to think of a smart remark and, for once, couldn't. Maybe some other time, when he wasn't malnourished and injured. "_Yes_. It's awful. Why do you think everyone breaks out?"

"Did it ever occur to you that if you expended energy on recovering instead of escaping, you could get out legally?"

_No, because there's nothing wrong with me. _Aside from the hallucinations and panic attacks, but those didn't count. They were the Batman's fault. "No one ever _recovers _in Arkham. It's like a…like a…"

"Hellmouth?" Joker suggested.

Jonathan turned his head. "You watch _Buffy_?"

The Batman turned to face him again. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just…not conducive to mental wellbeing. Do I _have _to go back?"

"Yes."

"But what if I—"

"It's not negotiable. And stop moving your hand."

"Why do you care?" he asked, stopping his fingers mid-flex. "Just because you won't kill me doesn't mean you have to help me. My death would make protecting the city easier, wouldn't it?"

"Because I'm supposed to protect _everyone._ Criminals included. Just because you break the law doesn't mean your life is worth less."

Jonathan considered arguing. Certainly it sounded like the world's most idiotic reasoning to him. Rules of society dictated that those who chose to break the law should not be valued over those who didn't, or even on equal footing. But unable to cause the pain necessary to stay somewhat lucid, he quickly lost interest.

By the time they reached Arkham, he was completely out of it once more, actually clinging onto the Batman against the onslaught of crows, whimpering from the Joker's verbal assaults. It struck him, somewhere under the terror, that the sight of Batman actually escorting a patient back into Arkham as opposed to dragging them in unconscious was just bizarre enough to be funny, but he wasn't feeling up to laughing. It didn't help matters at all when Joan Leland showed up.

"Jonathan!" She stroked his hair out of his face, a caring, maternal gesture that made him sick. "I'm so glad you came back."

"I'm not."

Leland ignored that, taking his uninjured hand in her own. "Everyone's missed you so much. Thank you," she added to Batman, sounding less as if she was addressed an outlaw vigilante and more as if she was speaking to a teenage boy who'd brought her daughter back before curfew. _Apparently professionalism is no longer required._ She took in Jonathan's injury, eyes widening before she could stop them. "Oh dear. That must hurt."

_No, really? _"Not as much as I would like," he muttered, wishing more than ever he was at full snarking capabilities.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Jonathan. The infirmary can sort it out." She pulled him forward, albeit softly, and he began to wonder if it was too late for an escape attempt.

"Good luck," the Batman said from behind him, and by the time Jonathan had turned around to respond, he was gone.

"People come and go so quickly here," he muttered, allowing himself to be led. Beside him, the Joker was saying odd combinations of threats and double entendres. His hand was burning unlike any pain he'd ever felt, and irritatingly, still not enough to put an end to the hallucinations, and he could feel the crows tearing at his skin. He felt terrified and helpless and trapped, and if Leland made one more sweetly condescending remark, he might have to hit her. But there was a promise of morphine and antipsychotics to come, and in what words of Leland's he managed to listen to, Edward Nigma was also in the infirmary, in the bed next to the one he was going to have. The situation was still miserable, but for the first time since he was no longer administrator, Arkham felt oddly like home.

* * *

"Don't let me stop your great self-destruction" is a lyric from _Jesus Christ Superstar. _"People come and go so quickly here" is from _The Wizard of Oz._

Hellmouth: Portal to hell from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer. _Buffy's high school is built over one.

The nasogastric tubing idea came partly from Wikipedia's article on force feeding, and partly from those horrifying scenes on _Heroes _where Sylar has an IV _stuck somewhere inside his nose. _Gah.

In the comics, Scarecrow can inspire suicide and madness by words alone. The knife idea came from my wondering if he could do it without words or toxin. Also, one of my friends informed me that I write Jonathan Crane as a whiny little bitch, so this was partly to counteract that. And if you're wondering how a malnourished, small person could escape/kidnap others, Rule of Scary. Never let logic get in the way of telling a story.

Once again, reviews are appreciated!


	2. Riddles

AN: All right, so I lied. This was originally intended as a one shot, since it was so long, with a sequel fic coming afterwards, but I decided that since the sequel would cover the events from immediately after the first chapter onwards, I might as well just keep on in the same fic. So now it's just an ordinary fic with an obscenely long first chapter.

Thanks for all the reviews!

* * *

Edward Nigma hated elastic. He would never understand how Pamela Isley or Harley Quinn managed to move covered in skintight material, let alone run about the city and take part in fights. The stuff was so damn restricting, and way too close to the skin for comfort. When he went out to commit crimes, he wore a suit, and despite the lecture Pam had given him on how his attire was actually more inhibiting than hers, he wasn't about to change his style. Spandex, nylon, elastic…all completely idiotic and worthless fabrics, as far as he was concerned.

Unfortunately, most of his upper body and arms were now covered in the stuff, as pressure garments to reduce scarring. An unfortunate side effect of having his latest Batman death trap fail; as the trap had involved fire and Batman had that lovely little habit of turning attacks back around on his opponents, he'd suffered a fair few burn wounds. The wounds themselves, he could deal with. Super villains in Gotham got used to pain, fast, or they weren't super villains for long. The damn elastic, though, that was almost enough to make him rethink his career choices.

Still, he reflected, turning on his side as he resisted the urge to pull the pressure garments off, he was better off than Jonathan Crane.

Jonathan had been in for a week now, in the bed beside his own, and he was an absolute mess. His physical condition would have been horrifying enough—so severely underweight that he looked like an anorexia patient—without the scars, which were the final touch to the nightmare. From the neck down, his skin didn't resemble skin anymore so much as a patchwork of raised, reddened areas slashing haphazardly through the white, smooth spots. A few of them had gotten infected, despite the fact that Jonathan seemed to have kept himself as clean as possible while on the run—how like him, Edward had reflected, to care more about his hygiene than his health—and his first two days had been spent knocked out while the doctors pumped what remained of his body full of antibiotics.

And then there was his hand, without a doubt the worst of all the injuries, made even more terrifying by the knowledge that it was self-inflicted. The bones where he'd shot the nail in were completely _shattered_, from what Edward had overheard from the doctors, and had to be reset by implanting metal rods to hold things in place. More than likely there was nerve damage, and it was a given that physical therapy would be required once he healed enough to do it.

Jonathan shifted, leaning back against his pillow as his eyes opened. He blinked a few times against the cold noon light coming in through the infirmary windows, pulling slightly at the restraints fasted around his wrists and ankles to keep him from escape, or more self harm.

"Hello, Jonathan." Edward sat up, taking the bottle of Ensure from Jonathan's bedside table and unscrewing the lid. He was supposed to be restrained as well, but it hadn't taken. The straps were after all, just another riddle, only they involved twisting the body rather than the mind. Once the staff had seen that he made no attempts at escape, they'd given up trying to hold him, though the guards around the doors were doubled. Honestly, he'd felt well enough to go back to his own cell days ago, but that would mean leaving Jonathan alone.

And in his current mental state, isolation was the last thing he needed.

"'Lo," Jonathan managed, his eyes somehow managing to look so dark despite their light shade, focusing on Edward only briefly before starting to wander. His body was twitching slightly, from the assault of imaginary birds. He winced, closing his eyes. "Please don't yell at me."

"Joker again?" Edward asked, taking his friend's injured hand in his own. Jonathan was still hallucinating, as the antipsychotics could take up to three weeks to work effectively, build back up in the system. In the meantime, it was unnerving as hell to see his usually stoic friend having all the self control of a frightened child. "He's not really here, remember Jonathan? We talked about how he isn't real yesterday, do you remember?" And the day before that, and the day before that. It never took, not for more than a few minutes.

Jonathan shook his head, hand tightening around Edward's. Whatever he was seeing, it couldn't be pleasant. "Not him. Scarecrow's not happy."

_Great. _It was one thing to say the Joker wasn't there. That, Jonathan would at least listen to, if only to forget it moments later. Scarecrow, on the other hand, he refused to hear a word against. Edward hadn't even tried to suggest that there was no Scarecrow, knowing well enough it was just Jonathan's name for a part of himself, but he had tried speculating aloud that Scarecrow didn't always give the best advice. To be met with 'he's my best friend and he cares about me more than anyone else in the world and he just wants to help me,' _ad nauseum._ "What's Scarecrow upset about?"

"He doesn't like the dream I had, I think," Jonathan muttered, eyes darting back and forth. "I thought it was a good dream."

"What was it?"

"I was stuck in a dark place, a very dark, watery place underground, and I couldn't find my way out. I kept running and running and never getting anywhere, and there was…a bad, _bad _person after me." His voice remained flat as he spoke, but his eyes had closed tightly and his grip even tighter. "And I couldn't get away. Then Scarecrow came and took me by the hand," he relaxed visibly, "and told me everything would be okay and took me outside where it was safe and bright and not scary. Only once we got outside I realized it hadn't been Scarecrow. It was the Batman."

Ah. No wonder Scarecrow hadn't liked _that._ Hell, it even disturbed him. How far gone did his friend have to be, to see Batman in a positive light? "Did you tell him you can't help what you dream?"

"Yes. He said he's not angry about the dream anyway. Just that he wants to leave."

"You can't leave," Edward said, as patiently as he could considering they'd had this conversation roughly eight million times in the last week. "You're too sick to go anywhere. You would only get worse, remember?"

"Uh-huh." He nodded, hair falling into his face. Edward brushed it back. "I told him that. He said I'm not that sick and he didn't care."

"Well, if he's not being rational, you shouldn't talk to him for a little bit until he calms down, okay?"

"Um." He winced again. "I tried that, but he's being kind of loud."

_Some best friend._ "Hey, Jonathan?"

"Yes?"

If he couldn't make him stop hallucinating, he could at least distract him from the voices. "Say I have a valuable item I need to send to you, and a box to send it in that can be fitted with multiple locks. The problem is, I need to lock the box, but you don't have the key to any of my locks, and I can't send you a key because it could be intercepted and copied. You live too far away for me to deliver it in person, and I can't trust anyone else to bring it to you. How do I get the item to you?"

"Er…" his eyes cleared slightly as he considered it. Edward had no doubt that had he been in his right mind—or, as right as his mind got—he would have gotten it at once. He was the only one on the intellectual level to get most of what Edward said, though in terms of genius, he was still below him. Most everyone was. "You put a lock on it and send it to me, and I put my own lock on it when I get it and send it back. Then you take your lock off and send it back to me, and I unlock my lock with my key. Right?" He sounded unsure, which disturbed Edward more than it should have. He wasn't exactly operating at full capacity, but he was always such a narcissist, so self-assured. Hearing doubt from him was like hearing a heavy metal band play polka. It just didn't fit.

"Yes. Good job. Want another one?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay. The beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place?"

"Um. The letter e?"

"Right." His friend was almost entirely focused on him at this point, so he thought it safe to stop the questions for a few minutes. Letting go of Jonathan's hand, he picked the Ensure back up. "Here, you need to drink this."

"I _hate _that stuff," he protested, sounding so sulky it was almost comical. At least, until Edward remembered how starved he was.

"No, this is the vanilla flavor. You like vanilla, remember?" Actually, vanilla was his _least _favorite, but he saw no point in reminding him of that fact. Besides, readjusting to the medicine was scrambling Jonathan's brain more than ever, to the point where he sometimes lost his train of thought in the middle of a sentence, so he might have forgotten how much he hated it.

"I'm not hungry."

"I know, but you need to eat if you want to get better." Jonathan remained unconvinced and he sighed. "I know it's hard, but if you don't get something in your system, they'll try to feed you again. You don't want that, do you?"

The mere mention of the idea made Jonathan go pale. Edward had never been tube fed, so he had no idea of the sensation, but from his friend's reactions it was hell on Earth. They'd put the tube back in while he was unconscious from infection, and when he woke up he'd thrown such a fit that it took Leland nearly an hour to calm him down enough to let the doctors remove it safely.

"_No_." He was shaking. "No no no, I don't want that, I'd starve before I let them do that again, it's mean and it's awful and I hate it. It hurts and it doesn't fit and once it's in they shove air in your stomach and it _hurts_ and then they make you eat and it hurts even more."

Edward put his free hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "All right, all right. Calm down, it's okay. No one's going to do that again, not if you try eating on your own. Relax, Jonathan." He raised the bottle to Jonathan's mouth, which remained closed.

"I _can't_," he said, through clenched teeth, turning his head.

Edward sighed. "Why not? I'm not going to pour the whole thing down your throat at once, you know. We can take this slowly."

Jonathan shook his head. "It'll make me sick."

"Look, I know it doesn't feel good, but you have to try it or—"

"No, I mean _really _sick." His eyes had gone wide and searching again, body shivering. "If I drink that, I'll die."

"You will not," Edward said, as patiently as he could manage. "It's helping you. You've been drinking it all week. Why on Earth do you think it'll make you sick?"

"Because he said so," Jonathan muttered, head drooping.

"Scarecrow?"

"No. The Joker." He tilted his head in the direction of the empty bed to his right. "He said it'll kill me if I drink it. And I don't want to die, no matter how big an adventure it would be. I don't want to. I'm scared."

"The Joker's not really here, remember?" There was no response. Oh, this was going to be a long day. "Jonathan? You're only seeing things, okay? It's just in your imagination. Focus on what's real."

"I wish people wouldn't say that," he moaned, closing his eyes. "I can't focus; I don't know what's real anymore and what isn't. If he's not real, what makes you real, or the nurses? Or me? I wish people wouldn't say that…I wish I could know for sure." He pulled on the straps again, opened his eyes. "I want to hurt again."

"So you'll know?"

Jonathan nodded.

"You can't do that, Jonathan. It's not good for you."

"I _know _that. But it helps. It makes everything go the way it should be, it puts all the colors back inside the lines, and I know what's going on. I wish I could do it, so bad. I miss it."

He managed to hold the sigh in this time, but only just. "All right, here's how you know if someone is real or not. If they want to hurt you, they're not, okay? But if they're trying to help you, they are. Anyone who tells you that food you need is going to make you sick is not being your friend. So ignore him." He brought the bottle to Jonathan's lips again, and while he didn't open his mouth, he didn't turn away either. "Do you want me to ask you riddles again? Would that help you feel better?"

He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"Okay. But you have to drink, understand? I'll ask you the questions while you're drinking and you can answer between sips. All right?"

He didn't respond, just glanced down to the Ensure, considering.

"Don't be afraid. It won't make you sick, I promise."

Another nod, and he opened his mouth and drank, wincing at the taste.

"What gets wetter as it dries?" Easy, far below Jonathan's intelligence, but he didn't feel like putting a strain on him in such a state.

Jonathan swallowed. "Towel."

"Good," he said, as his friend began to drink again. "What can you catch but not throw?"

"Cold."

"Yes. What's full of holes, but still holds water?"

"Sponge."

"Good job. What goes around the world but stays in a corner?"

"Stamp."

"Yes. What do you call it when an elephant sits on a fence?"

"Time to get a new fence."

"Good. What can't you see, but you can show?"

He swallowed and paused, considering. "A face?"

"Nope." Before Jonathan could ask, he made him drink again.

"Eyes?"

"No."

"A mirror?"

"You can see a mirror, Jonathan." The bottle was over half empty now, and Jonathan was drinking more. He assumed confusion distracted him from his dislike of the stuff, and paranoia over illness.

"What, then?"

"Here, finish this and I'll tell you."

Jonathan looked down at it, wrinkled his nose. "But I don't like that stuff."

"Well, do you want to know the answer or don't you?"

He sighed. "Fine." Edward let him drink again, hiding a smile. Even when completely out of touch, his need for knowledge still took control over everything else. "What is it?" he asked, when he'd finished, managing to look curious as a cat even while making faces from the taste.

"Friendship, of course."

* * *

The bit about dying being an adventure comes from a line in Peter Pan. The elephant on the fence riddle comes from the graphic novel _Hush_ when Riddler calls it a worthless riddle as everyone knows the answer.

The actual plot will come back in the next chapter, but after being so horrible to Jonathan in the first, I wanted him to have some time just to have a friend be nice to him in a time of need, with no nail guns or knives or anything.


	3. Attention Whore

AN: Sorry, I mean to have this up yesterday, but I got distracted showing my friends awesome movies. And by "awesome movies" I mean _Breakfast on Pluto. _Which is actually only one movie, as I'm sure you're aware. I fail at writing coherently.

In other news, winters in Indiana are proof that there is no God. I thought I was used to it, growing up here, but southern Indy's got nothing on the north. Never before have I used the term "Hey guys, it warmed up to negative two" before. Or followed it mentally with "So with the wind chill that's, what, negative fifteen?"

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

As soon as he got out of here, he was going to hunt down the idiots behind Ensure and kill them.

Well, perhaps that was a bit extreme. After all, it wasn't their fault that Arkham only stocked three flavors of the stuff. Vanilla, which was absolutely disgusting, coffee latte, which ironically enough, given his hatred for coffee, was his favorite, and milk chocolate, which he refused to try because it reminded him too much of eating fudge ripple ice cream with the Joker. He'd actually told the nurses this, in one of his less lucid moments, and he blushed every time he remembered that fact. It was pathetic enough to have flashbacks brought on by a drink flavor, and the fact that others knew about it made it nearly unbearable.

The moment the concentration of drugs got back to normal in his body, he'd be out of here. Even if he was still ridiculously underweight at the time. He could deal with that on his own; but he needed to be stabilized on the medication, or knowing him, he'd forget, and go back to the state he was in when the Batman brought him back. But as soon as he was sure that wouldn't happen, he'd be out.

Unfortunately, the antipsychotics had yet to go back to their full effectiveness.

The hallucinations were…well, not gone, but easier to ignore. At the moment, anyway. He was still every bit as badly off as he'd been this morning, when Nigma had forced him to eat, but Jonathan and Scarecrow were sharing control at the moment, which helped. The shaking hadn't stopped, though. Scarecrow's theory was that it was only partly hallucination now, and partly a side effect of the antipsychotic mixing with all the other drugs.

He drank again, almost gagging on what passed for coffee latte. By 'favorite flavor' he actually meant, 'one that makes me want to kill the least.' God, he was longing for the day when his body could handle real food without puking like a kid longed to hear Santa's sleigh bells on Christmas Eve. At least they'd unstrapped him so he could feed himself this time. That was why they were sharing the body, actually, to come off as controlled enough to warrant that privilege. Scarecrow and Jonathan still weren't on the best of terms. Together, they could agree that they should at least stay until the drugs stabilized, but apart, Scarecrow wanted out, now, consequences be damned, and Jonathan just wanted to hide under the bed sheets from the things he was imagining and sob.

"You're shaking. Are you still cold?" Isley asked, watching him from the foot of the bed. She'd convinced her psychiatrist to let her visit, and hadn't taken her eyes off him since coming in, even when speaking to Nigma. As if he'd break his skull or something the moment she turned her back.

"No." He took another drink that he really didn't want as Nigma explained the hallucination thing, and tried not to blush. Showing weakness like this made him feel completely emasculated. And annoyed. And he hadn't been cold, the only reason he'd requested the long-sleeved shirt he had on now was because Isley kept staring at the scars. She still shot glances to his bandaged hand every minute or so. Jonathan appreciated the concern. Scarecrow could have slapped her.

_Yeah, like it would even hurt,_ said a voice that wasn't either of his. _Hell, she probably hits less like a girl than you do._

He tensed, slightly, with the briefest shake of his head, as if to clear the voice. The visual hallucinations were one thing. Convincing as ever, but Scarecrow knew they weren't real, and was able to pick up on the way that no one else reacted to them. Voices, on the other hand, came into his head just like his own thoughts and were far harder to ignore.

His companions noticed, concern flashing over Isley's face before she could hide it. "Who's talking to you, Jonathan?"

"Joker."

"He's not—"

"I know," he said, before Nigma could make some meant-to-be-consoling remark that may well push him into killing rage. Not that he had any weapons, but he was fairly sure the earpieces of his glasses could jam into eye sockets. Isley said something, which he missed, still considering methods of death by eyeglasses. "What?"

"I said, 'pity Batman doesn't break his rule for that bastard.'"

"Ah."

"Well, look on the bright side," Nigma said, pulling at the elastic around his wrist for a moment, before Isley slapped his hand away. "Can't you just imagine the look on his face when he saw the news broadcast?"

He stared, expression blank, as Isley giggled. "News broadcast?"

"Yeah. You know, the one about Batman apprehending you?" Isley paused, fingers winding through her thick red hair. "Oh, I guess you were still unconscious when they aired that one. But it was great. That stupid clown must have flipped out over it _so _badly."

Jonathan tried, unsuccessfully, to shrug aside the horde of butterflies suddenly in his stomach, which turned out to be impossible. They seemed to hate coffee latte just as much as he did. That, or they were as terrified as their host. "There was a _broadcast_?"

"There's always a broadcast, now that the Batman's back to being Gotham's greatest hero. Especially when the security camera footage gets leaked. I mean, how many times do you get footage of the Bat holding a villain's hand as he escorts him back into the asylum?"

"He _wasn't _holding my hand!"

"I was _kidding_." Isley ducked as a pillow came hurtling towards her, just sailing over her head on its way to the floor. "But seriously, Jonathan, he always hauls us in unconscious. Of course a time when that didn't happen would be newsworthy."

_Oh, fuck. _"How newsworthy?" he asked, unsure he wanted to hear the answer. A nurse placed the pillow back on the bed, shooting them a mildly disapproving look before heading back to her desk.

"Er…Mike Engel talked about it on his show the next night," Nigma said, looking apologetic. "He had a pair of psychologists on the air, arguing about whether it signified Batman as having a positive influence, or creating some sort of mild Stockholm Syndrome."

"Oh, _God_." Everything he'd just drank was threatening to come back up, and now he was giving serious consideration to shoving the glasses into his own eyes. Isley realized what he was up to about a second beforehand, unfortunately, and took the glasses away.

* * *

Harley wasn't sure she'd ever understand the Joker's obsession with Batman.

When she was his psychiatrist, she'd gotten the impression that in a twisted way, Joker looked up the Bat as a role model of sorts, only instead of living up to his standard in the normal way, he subverted the other's morals. More of a rival then a role model, maybe. She'd assumed his fascination with the Batman was out of a desire to fight him, triumph over him. Kill him, eventually.

Then she began living with him, and realized just how wrong that interpretation was.

Oh, he wanted to fight him, all right, she definitely hadn't been wrong on that part. But as for winning; he didn't seem to care whether or not he came out victorious. Each failed plan that got them sent back to Arkham was met with the same happiness as each success. And he definitely didn't want to kill him. He didn't want to _win_, it seemed, so much as he wanted to _corrupt. _To bring the Batman down—or up, in Harley's opinion—to his level. And beyond that, Batman was almost a drug for him. He craved his presence, acted like an addict going cold turkey without it, irritable, dangerous, and not thinking clearly at all. It was painful to watch, in more ways than one. There were times Harley got the impression that Joker liked the Batman more than her. Many times.

And the irony of his habit of smoking cigarettes after his fights with Batman had certainly _not _been lost on her.

No, she didn't think she'd ever understand it. What she did understand, perfectly well, was that she could not let him see the reports of the Batman's latest victory, involving a certain ex-boyfriend of the Joker's getting the attention Joker had always longed for.

It was by sheer luck that she'd caught the news in time to distract the Joker from it. Time spent living with him had resulting in her picking up a similar sleep schedule, that being nocturnal. Normally she would have been asleep until around one in the afternoon, but as her –and Jonathan's—lucky stars would have it, she woke up at eight that morning and could not, for the life of her, fall back asleep. A remnant of her former life as a psychiatrist, maybe. Whatever the reason, an hour or so later found her sprawled on the couch, spreading cream cheese on a bagel and catching the morning news.

She'd nearly had a heart attack when that particular story came up.

The story itself was bad enough, but the footage accompanying it…well, if Joker ever saw that, she had little doubt Jonathan would be dead in a matter of hours. Or at least severely maimed. Again. And while keeping secrets from the Joker was a bad, likely deadly idea itself, she still had nightmares about that night in the Arkham parking lot, when her best friend had come so close to having all his bones shattered into dust. So she decided to distract him.

She left the apartment at around nine thirty, and by the time the Joker woke up at two, she'd returned home with several new pairs of recreational handcuffs, among other things, and raided the Joker's closet for one of his shortest, sheerest nightdresses. She wasn't quite sure why he had those to begin with, but he looked so pretty in them she'd never bothered to ask. And she'd paid a visit to one of the seediest, vilest adult shops in Gotham, to pick up a few of those locally made videos featuring actors portraying herself and her puddin'. Moral guardians called such films disgusting, unethical filth. Harley found them hilarious, and the Joker was always prompted by them to fly into a sort of sexual rage and show her how he _really_ did things.

And when he did, she didn't complain.

That worked as a distraction for the first two, utterly exhausting days. The third day had been a recovering period, for the both of them. On the fourth day, the Joker discovered that the apartment below them was home to a pair of young siblings whose mother was far too preoccupied with working to pay the bills to believe her children's stories about seeing the city's greatest criminal, and the rest of that day, as well as the fifth and sixth, was spent traumatizing them for life like a demented version of the Cat in the Hat.

But on Friday, the now-mentally-scarred kids had gone to visit their father for the weekend, and Harley was left out of ideas.

She'd managed to distract him, thankfully, for most of the day with the Animal Planet channel. Seeing predators tear into their prey never failed to amuse him, and it helped that she'd mentioned she thought she'd heard they were doing a special on bats. They weren't, of course, but there were hyenas, which entertained him almost as well. Now he was off trying to figure out just how the laptop worked, so he could ask the all-knowing Wikipedia if hyenas could be domesticated and used like attack dogs.

Harley was making coffee and wondering if they had any sedatives to slip into it.

_Still, it's been a week. The whole thing's probably blown over by now. _She hoped, anyway. Her luck had been incredible so far, and it seemed due to give out. And they'd likely be needing a new laptop now. The Joker wasn't good with any technology that wasn't used to hurt people or blow things up, and their last two computers had been sent to earlier graves when he got sick of trying to puzzle them out, and shut them off using his guns. If her luck held, he'd be distracted for a few more hours before he broke this one.

"_Harley._"

It wasn't quite a yell, just her name spoken loudly. But he didn't need to yell. She could tell well enough that he was pissed, and something very, very bad was about to happen. With a sinking feeling, she made her way down the hall towards the bedroom, movement getting harder with each step. "Yes, Mistah J?"

He was sitting on top of the dresser, legs crossed with the laptop resting on them, and an expression that would have caused lesser henchwenches to faint. And it occurred to her that if he had, by some miracle, managed to work out the Internet, she'd set the homepage to GCN's website. Because he so loved hearing news about himself. And the site's main page had news stories for up to two weeks.

_Oh, shit._

"You wanna explain to me what the hell this is?" he asked, turning the screen toward her. Her worst suspicions were confirmed.

_Oh, double shit._ That was it, she was dead. She was dead, and then Jonathan was dead, and probably all of Gotham, besides the Batman. Hell, maybe even him too. "Puddin', I know you're angry, but you've got to think rationally about th—"

"Who the _fuck _does Jonny Crane think he is?" He jumped down; the laptop went crashing to the carpet. It stayed in one piece, but the screen flickered to black, and she doubted she'd ever get it to light up again. "Batman is _my _nemesis. _My_ other half. _Mine._"

Harley looked for something substantial to hide behind or shield herself with, and found nothing but a large stuffed fish mounted on the wall, left behind by the previous, deceased tenants. _Hell. _Oh well. It's what she deserved anyway, keeping secrets from him. If only it didn't spell Jonathan's doom as well. "Mistah J, I'm sure he didn't mean to—"

One of the Joker's shoes, which only seconds ago had been on his foot, went flying. Harley ducked, as the mirror on the wall behind her shattered to pieces. "Why doesn't he ever do that for _me_? Haven't I been the bigger threat? Why don't _I _get that attention?"

"Puddin'—" she dodged the other shoe, feeling jealousy along with fear. It just figured. Even after the worst breakup ever, Jonathan still dominated his thoughts. "I don't think he lets _anybody _take him back to Arkham willingly. Batman was probably goin' to kill him, and he just agreed to come quietly so he wouldn't get hurt more—"

"Who are you talking about?" he asked, brows raising. The dresser drawer he'd pulled out and been preparing to throw stopped dead, his hands lowering slowly.

"Who are _you _talkin' about?" she asked, taking advantage of his distraction to hide on the other side of the bed.

"The Batman, idiot. Not Jonny."

"Oh." So Jonathan wasn't going to be horribly killed? Maybe things weren't going as badly as they seemed. "Well, puddin', he probably doesn't do that with you, 'cause, um…"

"_I'm _the bigger threat to the city!" The mattress shifted against it as he threw himself on the bed, like a child having a fit. "What does Jonny ever do? So he cut up a few people, big fucking deal. When I kill people, I don't soft skirt around the issue. I rip 'em apart. By the dozen."

"I know."

There came a sound of splintering wood, and she didn't have to look up to know that somehow, he'd managed to tear off one of the bedposts. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later, when he threw it against the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster.

"I've been out since September. _Fucking _September. That little idiot in a burlap mask gets out two months ago, and he gets escorted back into Arkham like some goddamn princess? He didn't even knock him out! Why hasn't he come after _me_?"

"He has," Harley said, and ducked, in case another bedpost came flying her way. "Twice, remember? The first time you stabbed him in the ribs, and the second time you set him on fire."

"So what, this is my fault now for putting up a fight? We're _supposed _to fight, that's what makes things fun!" His voice was a strange combination of anger and despondence, as though he might break into frustrated tears at any second. It was exactly like a little kid having a tantrum, but her heart went out to him all the same, and she risked sitting up enough to look at him. He was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, as if he couldn't make up his mind whether to shout or sob.

"Mistah J, I don't think it's fun for him. He always says he doesn't want to fight, remember?"

"So what, I'm supposed to give up like some submissive little bitch? Where's the game in that? Where's the _challenge_?"

Harley reached out, stroked his hair. He didn't move. "Maybe the challenge is findin' how to put the game in that," she suggested. "Give in without really givin' up, you know? That'd really throw him off, wouldn't it?"

For a moment there was no response, and she thought he'd gone into one of those silent rage moods he had sometimes. Where he wouldn't speak, or eat, or move, or so much as _look _at her, often for days at a time. She got that sinking feeling again. She _hated _times like those, always reduced to hovering at his side, feeling useless and wondering if the whole mess was her fault.

But suddenly, before she could react, the spark came back to his eyes and he had hold of her wrist, pulling her up on the bed. It was painful; her arm nearly came out of the socket. "That's it! I've got it, Harl, I've absolutely got it."

"Got what?" she asked, unable to hold in a gasp of pain. He let go, and she rubbed the injured shoulder, wincing.

"How to get his attention, of course." He was off the bed already, pacing around the room as he often did when a brilliant idea came to him. "How to _make _him pay attention, get him to treat me just as nicely as he did Scareslut, and more."

"Um…that's really great." She sat up cautiously, in case he was still in the mood to throw things. "How are we goin' to do that, Mistah J?"

He didn't answer, occupied with dialing the cell phone he'd pulled from his pockets. "Get your coat, Harley-girl. Because this plan starts yesterday."

* * *

AN: I can absolutely see Ledger Joker hiding under a little kid's bed, for no other reason to scare them shitless. I imagine a lot of the children I saw being taking into TDK when I worked the theater for that movie had nightmares about him. *sigh*

Starting the move back to sane!Jonathan, because crazy!Jonathan is depressing to write. Fun, but depressing.

I imagine Arkham's security people have no integrity at all—hence the leaked tapes—but haven't been fired because no one else wants the job. Seriously, who—besides fangirls like myself—would ever want to work there?


	4. Not Special

AN: So it warmed up to three degrees today, though when I went to work this morning it was negative thirteen with a wind chill factor of negative thirty. I actually felt ice forming in my nose, and spent the rest of my time outside with a scarf wrapped around my head about eight hundred times. Ah, Indiana.

Anyway, back to the story. Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

__

_Fucking crows, _Scarecrow thought, feeling a poke against his ribs. He felt like sighing, but wasn't yet awake enough to make himself do so. He _was_ awake enough to realize he was waking up, however, and that annoyed him to no end. Getting to sleep had always been hard for him, even before he'd started having nightmares about demonic bats. And the whole readjusting to brain altering drugs and hallucinations issues hadn't helped. He'd already woken up three times in the night, the last screaming so badly he'd had to be mildly sedated.

He felt a poke again, this time accompanied by a voice. "Jooooonnnnnyyyy."

_Fan-fucking-tastic_. He didn't need to open his eyes to recognize the voice. So the Joker hallucinations were back as well. He did sigh now, and tried to turn away, only to feel material catch against his wrists._ Oh. The restraints._ He'd forgotten they put those back on at the same time he'd been sedated. Which made no sense—how much damage could he cause with his system pumped full of Xanax?—but then, Arkham and logic got along like oil and water.

"Jonny?"

He tried to say "Piss off," but the words came out slurred, unintelligible. _Why am I acknowledging this to begin with?_ he wondered, mildly disgusted with himself. Giving in was something Jonathan did, not him. He was still together enough to know that the Joker was not really sitting on his bed, poking him in the ribs. It was probably the sedatives. He closed his eyes tighter, tried to ignore the voice and fall back to sleep.

"Jonny." This time there was a hand at his wrist, pulling on his sleeve.

_Oh, for Christ's sake_. Well, there was little chance of falling back asleep now. He opened his eyes, which took more effort than he'd thought it would. Stupid sedatives. He blinked, almost but not quite managing to focus on the Joker, looking down at him from his position beside Scarecrow on the bed.

"Well, it's about time, Sleeping Beauty." Black-lined eyes scrutinized him, and Scarecrow noticed that for some reason, this hallucination looked like the actual Joker, and not a nightmarish, fear toxin version of him. Odd. It might have been a sign that the medication was taking effect, but he'd never known the hallucinations to get more realistic before they faded, just to become less distracting.

The Joker shook his head. "God, scaredy cat, you've really let yourself go, huh?" He felt leather against his arm, and realized, slowly, that the Joker had pulled his sleeve back and was caressing the scars there. "I mean, I know everyone reacts to breaking up in their, uh, own way, but look at you. I mean, cheer up, emo kid."

Even when hallucinatory, and even when Jonathan was sedated, the Joker still managed to enrage him. _I must be the spawn of Satan. Why else would my mind torture me like this? _"Don't touch my scars," he muttered, teeth clenched, and could have slammed his head against the wall in frustration once the words left his mouth. _Great, responding to the hallucinations now. This is getting to Jonathan levels of pathetic._

Joker smirked, fingers tapping against the reddened, inflamed tissue. "Or you'll what? You used to like it when I touched 'em, didn'tcha?" He paused, eyes scanning Jonathan's body, and tilted his head. "Though…none of those were really self-inflicted, back when we were to_geth_er." He twisted the final word in his mouth, as if poisoning the syllables that should have formed an innocent term. "What, are you ashamed of the new ones?"

Scarecrow felt his face flush, now really wanting to smash his head against something. _For the love of God, get it together. You're letting a damned figment of imagination bother you_. He knew about Jonathan's—and by association, his—loss of control well enough, the last thing he needed was this clown reminded him. He looked away to the next bed where Nigma lay sleeping, trying to block the voice and image out.

"Hey." There was a hand on his face, moving his head back to face the Joker. And despite his attempts to look back the other way, he couldn't. _Goddamn sedatives._ A hallucination should not have power like this, not over him. Jonathan, yes, but Scarecrow was better than that. He was above that. It had to be the sedatives weakening his resolve, because he was above being pushed around by an illusion.

Or at least, he was supposed to be.

"You _are_ embarrassed," Joker said, running his fingers across his captive's burning face. Scarecrow tried turning away again, and the Joker, giggling, grabbed him by the hair, holding him in place. "That's cute, you know that? Mr. All-Powerful Scarecrow, supposed to be so removed from lowly ordinary people, so, uh, above all that, and you're embarrassed by a few deformities." He tilted his head again, considering. "Or…you're not bothered by the scars themselves, are you? No, it's just what they repre_sent_." His hand left Jonathan's face, went over his mouth as he giggled. "You lost control, huh?"

"Shut up."

"You did. You _so_ did. You. Lost. Control. You hacked yourself up, because you couldn't take it. You couldn't take a breakup, for Christ's sake. I mean, _c'mon_. How pathetic is that? You couldn't have just, I dunno, bitched in your Livejournal for a few hours, 'til you got over it?"

It occurred to Scarecrow, somewhere between his rage and shame, that he had no idea what a Livejournal was. Great. Now the hallucinations had developed self-awareness. It was like that episode of _The Twilight Zone, _only without the robots. "I cut myself because I was insane at the time, you idiot."

"Whatever." He gave a dismissive shrug, hand disappearing into his jacket for a moment, presumably straightening the suspenders underneath, judging from the movement. "You're always insane. The poi_nt _is, you're human. You're not immune to emotion."

_Don't let it get to you. He's not real, it's just yo—it's just _Jonathan's _insecurities manifesting. Don't let it get to you_. He tried to keep his face impassive and almost succeeded. "So what?"

"So you're just like everyone else." His hand was back on Scarecrow, caressing his cheek almost gently. "You're not special. And that drives you crazy, doesn't it, Jonny? 'Cause you've always been about power, and now your body's a living reminder that you can't lord over it all. You're not special. And you can't offer anything to the Batman that _I _couldn't do better. 'Cause I'm actually, you know, a challenge."

Scarecrow stared, mind blank for a second. _Where the hell did that come from?_ Since when was Jonathan insecure about Batman liking the Clown Prince of Crime more? His other half hated the Bat just as badly as he did, or at least he thought so. Then again, there was that dream from last night…Fantastic. Just fantastic. As if the malnutrition and the hallucinations weren't enough, his alter ego had a crush on the goddamn Batman?

It was too much. It was all too much. He was enraged and ashamed and unsettled, and starving, despite the fact that eating made him just as sick as neglecting food had. He was drugged up to his eyeballs and then some, and even that wasn't enough to block out crap like this. And he was still shaking all over. But above all that, he was tired. Exhausted, really. His eyes were half-closed as he made himself look back at the Joker. "Fascinating insight. Are you about finished?"

To his astonishment—and mild amusement—the Joker looked confused for once. "What?"

"I'm ti_red_," he said, mocking the Joker's inflections. "This is the fourth time I've been up tonight, so if you're quite through with humiliating me, I'd like to go back to sleep. All right?"

The clown's eyes narrowed, hand that had been stroking Scarecrow's hair twisting painfully. "It isn't wise to talk back to me, Jonny. You remember the last time you tried that?"

He rolled his eyes. "Find a new threat, would you? There's nothing you can do to me." And there wasn't. He might hallucinate pain, but the only injuries ever caused during these periods were self-inflicted. "I'm strapped down to the bed, idiot. What can you possibly hope to accomplish?"

The expression on the Joker's face was more than mildly amusing now. He looked about as lost as a nun in a red light district. "Have you completely lost it?" he managed, after a moment, look shifting back to angry. "Still suicidal, I guess?"

"Suicidal?" He laughed back, partly at the idiocy of the idea and partly at the Joker's look. "Right. Because provoking a hallucination is so likely to get me killed. What do you plan to do, annoy me to death?"

There was a pause, of about thirty seconds or so. "_Huh_?"

"That's the best you can come up with?" He laughed again. "I suppose the Xanax moved to the part of my head imagining you. Good to know."

He blinked more than a few times, rapidly. "Jonathan? I'm _not_ a hallucination, you idiot."

"Sure you're not. Just like you weren't this morning. Or yesterday. Or every day since I stopped taking the pills."

"Every day?" The Joker still looked incredulous, though he managed a smirk. "Damn, I didn't know you were obsessed with me _that _bad."

"Right. Look, why don't you run along and come back when I've gotten some sleep? Maybe Jonathan will be the one who sees you when you come back, and he'll actually fall for it. Or not, I think the meds are kicking in again. But you can always try."

The Joker slapped him, impact making him see stars in one eye. It hurt like hell, but then, everything hurt lately. It was easy enough to ignore, past the initial shock.

"I take it someone doesn't like realizing he's imaginary, then?"

"Idiot. How can I hit you, if I don't exist?"

"Because the hallucinations aren't restricted to visual and auditory, obviously. I can imagine sensations as well. You're a part of me; shouldn't you know this?"

"Part of _you_?" The Joker shook his head. "Hate to break it to you, honey, but I'm _way _too interesting to be anybody's dream. Let alone some whiny little bitch who's gotta slice himself up to deal with his angst."

"Oh, as if you're one to talk. You think you're some greater class of person yourself, don't you? So…unaffected by remorse, or love, or fear." Scarecrow smirked back, pulling against the restraints a bit to sit up. "So tell me; if you're supposed to be fearless, why are you so concerned that the Batman might care about me?"

Hands grabbed him by the hair, slamming his head back against the cinderblock wall behind the pillow. He saw stars again, numb for a second before the pain reared its ugly head. "Correct me if I'm wrong, scaredy cat, but haven't I already taught you why it's a bad idea to mock me on that par_tic_ular point?"

"Well, if you're referring to the _real _Joker, then yes," he said, trying to make his vision focus again, and so far failing. "You, Mr. Hallucination, have only alluded to it in our unfortunately prolonged exposure to each other. I daresay you haven't quite got his talent for sending a message."

"Really?" There were hands around his throat now, not yet restricting his air supply, and all he could do was laugh. "You wanna test that, Jonny?"

"As I've said repeatedly now, I'd rather try that when I've had sleep."

"Well, hate to break it to you, kitten, but I've got plans for tonight, and none of 'em involve your unconsciousness anytime soon."

"_Don't_ call me that," he snapped, humor fading from his expression. It was only a nickname, yes, but it was far too close to bringing up memories of time spent together, memories that, despite the falling out, weren't entirely unpleasant to look back on. Which made them all the worse, made him feel all the more betrayed by his own damn emotions.

Joker's smug grin was back, fingers stroking the bandages over Scarecrow's hand. "Or what, kitten? As you said yourself, you're kinda strapped down at the moment." His hand trailed upward, slipping under Scarecrow's sleeve and caressing the scars again. "I can do whatever I want, and there's not a damn thing you can do to put a stop to it, is there?"

_Goddamn it_. Of course, just when he'd found some method of revenge his mind had to run it. "Fine," he said, keeping his voice mostly flat. "Do your worst. Why should I care? It's not as if it's actually happening."

"Right." His hand reemerged from the sleeve, stroked Scarecrow's face on the unscarred side, where he could feel every second of it. "Tell yourself that all you want, if it makes you feel better. But somehow I doubt that'll keep it from getting _way_ under your skin,_ kitten_."

"What are y—" And then the Joker leaned down, pushing his mouth against Scarecrow's.

_Fuck._

Imagined or not, it felt exactly the way their kisses had in real life. He could taste the Joker's lipstick, along with that gingivitis flavor he'd actually been able to ignore—God only knows how—in their time together, could feel the smooth paint and the heat and texture of scarred lips against his mouth, tongue trying to force its way between his own tightly clenched lips. It brought back the memory of every moment they'd shared and then some, and brought tears to his eyes, tears he refused to let out.

The reminders it brought up—the times Jonathan had told the Joker he loved him, the oddly sweet moments they'd shared, the kissing and what had followed it—were miserable enough, twisting his insides as if his organs had been shoved in a vice. But worse than that, there was still a part of him, somewhere far, far removed from the logical bits of his mind, that still responded to the touch. That actually wanted to kiss _back,_ and that realization was nearly enough to make him retch.

Then there was a sound of footsteps, and Joker pulled back at once, wiping the paint he'd left on Scarecrow's face away with his sleeve. He'd just lowered his arm back to his side when the doors to the infirmary opened and Harley stepped inside. He noticed, as the tears cleared from his vision, that the night nurse appeared to be missing. "Huh. Never hallucinated you before."

She stepped out of the way of the doors swinging back, stared. "What?"

"Ignore him, Harl. He's confused."

Behind her, the doors swung shut, with a loud slam. In the bed beside him, Edward Nigma twitched, and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Jonathan? What was that?"

He'd woken Nigma up? Interesting. He must have made some sound without realizing it. He'd never considered that noises he heard when hallucinating might well have been himself acting the fantasies out. "It's nothing. I'm hallucinating again, sorry. Just go back to sleep, all right? I'll be fine."

But Nigma had lowered his hands, and was now staring past Scarecrow, eyes wide, at the spot on the bed beside him where the Joker sat. Almost as if he could see him. Almost as if the Joker was really…_oh shit._

And then Jonathan was back, shaking like a startled rabbit, new tears threatening to come to his eyes. "N-Nigma? Tell me you can't—"

"Jonathan." He sounded as if he were trying to stay calm. Trying being the operative word. "Jonathan, what's he doing here?"

"But…but…" His brain refused to process it. Joker couldn't be here. He couldn't. "H-he's not real, right? You've been t-telling me that this whole time, haven't you? He can't—he isn't—" Nigma shook his head and he stopped mid-protest, heart sinking. _Shit. I'm beyond dead._

"Why are you here?" Wisely, Nigma directed the question at Harley, from whom there was at least half a chance of getting a straight answer.

"To see Batman, of course." She said it as if it should be obvious, sitting on the bed by Jonathan. In her gloved hand she took his uninjured one, and held tighter when he pulled away, stroking his face like one might pet a frightened animal.

"Why here?" Nigma asked, and Jonathan could see, through his terror, that his friend's mind was already working overtime to try and puzzle it out.

"Well, for starters, to visit scaredy cat here," Joker said, taking Jonathan's other hand and squeezing just enough to be painful. He smirked at Jonathan's gasp and went on. "And to remind him who the Bat's nemesis is. And second, because I had a lotta bombs, and I was in the mood to set 'em off. So if Batman doesn't show, this whole building goes sky high. No great loss, right? I mean, this is Arkham."

Never before had Jonathan found himself hoping for the Batman's arrival. Now, he was praying for it.

_

* * *

_

AN: The next chapter will have Bruce. About time too, considering I listed him as the second character as so far he's had one appearance.

I don't consider self-mutilation to be emo, but I can see the Joker mocking someone with that problem. Nor do I have anything against Livejournals. I have one myself.


	5. Selfless?

AN: It's twenty-six degrees out now. A miracle!

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

The Batsignal was lit, casting light across the otherwise darkened, cloudy sky of Gotham. Despite all the light pollution from buildings, streetlamps, floodlights, and the like, the night sky always managed to be black as pitch, rarely if ever letting stars shine through, and the moon only occasionally visible. Almost as if it were the city's mirror image; reflecting its bleak, hopeless nature back at itself.

_So what does that make the Batsignal? _Bruce wondered, charging through the streets on the Batpod. The entire Tumbler hadn't seemed necessary for this; the Joker was at Arkham after all, when he was subdued, he wouldn't need to be transported. Besides, two Tumblers had been destroyed now, first by the Joker's bazooka when protecting Harvey Dent, and the second by Harley Quinn, with a similar weapon. It hardly seemed worth several million more repairing it, money that could be spent helping the city in other ways.

He shot another glance to the Batsignal, as he turned around a corner. Was it a reflection of the city's hope, of the citizens who still hadn't given up, even with the revelation of Harvey Dent's true nature? Or was it only a symbol of fear, something to strike terror into the hearts of criminals as he'd intended when he'd chosen to make himself a bat? In a way, maybe both. He'd like to think that Batman had given Gotham hope, inspired a change for the better, but he was never sure. The only proof he'd ever had of that, really, was the copycat Batmen, and that had never been the kind of inspiration he'd meant to create.

As for fear, there he knew he'd been successful. At least, in most cases. Then there were those like the Joker, who remained unfazed no matter what he tried.

_The Joker._ Just thinking the name made him accelerate, almost unconsciously.

He didn't need to respond to the signal to know what was going on. He'd already heard the situation at Arkham over the police scanner. Not to mention that the video clip of the Joker's latest threat had been all over the news, since GCN had gotten a hold of it, not more than an hour ago. And given that surely nothing occurring in the city tonight required more police attention than this, the Commissioner was surely at Arkham now. Whoever they had on the roof was just a precaution, either to let the Joker know the Batman had been informed of the situation or as an attempt to assure the citizens with family or friends in Arkham that something was being done.

The threats seemed straightforward enough; bring in the Batman, or everyone dies. Himself included, but the Joker had demonstrated time and time again that he seemingly couldn't care less what happened to himself. But the Joker was anything but straightforward. "Man of his word," maybe, but his word meant exactly whatever he chose to interpret it as at the time. Going in with his guard down would be signing his own death warrant. Still, he doubted the Joker would blow up Arkham with Batman inside. Mad as he was, he was consistent in his sick mockery of affection , and to kill Bruce without corrupting him would give him no entertainment.

But he was up to something. He had to be, to walk back into his place of imprisonment, explosives or not. He was insane, but he wasn't an idiot. Still, whatever he had planned, it didn't matter. What mattered was getting in there, taking him down, and making sure no one else got hurt. The police hadn't been able to get in and confirm any causalities, but he was sure there had been deaths. This was the Joker, after all. He had no regard for anyone's life, not even his own. That was part of what made him so dangerous.

His heart went out, briefly, to both those who were surely dead by now, and their loved ones who'd yet to receive the news. Batman couldn't save everyone, he knew that, but it didn't make the hurt any less each time he uncovered someone else he'd failed. It was like a mild reliving of the deaths of his parents, or Rachel, each time a body turned up. Like witnessing Harvey Dent's downfall again, each time he saw someone break under the weight of their suffering. But he couldn't afford to let such thoughts burden him, not for long. Brooding had to be pushed aside, to help those still in need. Like tonight.

True, Arkham was home to some of the worst in Gotham, the worst himself when the Joker was housed there. But there were good people there as well, and even the criminals deserved protection from this. It was as he'd told Crane not long ago; his horrific experiments—or tortures—on others aside, he still didn't deserve to be blown to pieces. He reflected on how he'd brought Crane back, despite his protests about this exact sort of thing occurring, and shook his head. It was almost funny, in a sick way. Arkham was where the man belonged, doubtless, where all the rogues belonged, but as long as the hospital could be breached in this way, it could hardly be conducive to mental health.

He braked as he came to the front of the asylum, tires screeching against the pavement. Gordon looked away from a group of reporters he'd almost certainly been trying to persuade away, the cameras swinging less than a second later to record the Batman's arrival. He ignored them, looking past the mass of police and journalists and onlookers to inside the asylum's door, where through the smudged glass some of the bombs were visible, wired to blow and contained within…

* * *

"Valentine's chocolate boxes?" Nigma said, mouth hanging open as he watched the images unfold onscreen. "You put your bombs in _heart-shaped_ chocolate boxes?"

"Well, yeah," Joker said, as though it made perfect sense. "I'd originally bought all of 'em to, you know, give to Bats on Valentine's Day, but as he didn't show for my job then, I decided to reuse 'em." He began humming, something Nigma couldn't but thought he recognized as a love song.

Nigma fought back a shudder at the reminder of Joker's latest major crime, an attack on a restaurant that made the Saint Valentine's Day massacre look like a mild accident. That thing he'd done with the tea pots they'd described on the news…that was the stuff nightmares were made of.

"Come back to Arkham, he said," Jonathan muttered, rocking back and forth as much as the restraints would allow. He'd completely lost it, upon Nigma telling him his hallucination unfortunately wasn't. He regretted that, now. He'd have liked someone at least partly sane to converse with, and certainly he didn't like seeing his friend go through another panic attack. He hoped that's all it was, and not another breakdown. "It'll help, he said. You'll be fine. This isn't fine. This isn't fine at all. At all."

Joker paused, breaking off mid-hum as he turned. "You're talking about Batman?"

Jonathan's response was to moan, and pull away, twisting his body in manner that suggested he was trying to hide behind Harley as much he could while strapped down. She started stroking his hair again, to no visible effect.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes, then. See Jonathan? He _lied _to you. He doesn't care about you at all."

"Do you have to kick him while he's down?" Nigma asked, angered despite his knowledge that Joker may happily carve his face open for questioning him. It was bad enough that his friend had fallen for the maniac to begin with, but antagonizing him for no other reason besides the Batman bringing him back was just sadistic. As if he could help that. As if any of them asked to be caught.

Besides the Joker, anyway.

Nigma had figured it out, already, without much effort. Not that it had been too difficult of a riddle to begin with. Obviously, the Joker had been outraged to hear that his former lover had gotten treatment from the Batman he'd never received, and had set out to lure the vigilante to him, so he could be treated in the same way. Arkham as the location because Jonathan was there, and he wanted Jonathan to witness it, to show him that he hadn't taken Joker's place as Batman's arch nemesis, or whatever he considered himself, in his sick mind.

Joker shrugged, stroking Jonathan's bandages again and looking overjoyed at the panicked response. "It's his own fault for playing with _my _toy."

"Batman's not your toy."

"No." Joker sighed, smiling. "He's even better, because when I play he plays back. Not without encouragement, obviously, but still." He turned back to Jonathan, expression quickly shifting to contempt. "Better than the people who just lie there and let themselves believe what they want to, like stupid little dolls. So easy to break." He leaned forward, kissed Jonathan's forehead, stroking his face in an oddly affectionate way.

Jonathan didn't start muttering to himself again—hopefully, a sign that this hadn't pushed him over the edge once more—but he did go white, whiter than salt. He looked seconds away from fainting, and Nigma, consequences be damned, got off his own bed and onto Jonathan's, sitting beside Harley. Without hesitation, he put his arms around his friend and glared at the Joker, as if daring him to do something about it.

Joker only went back to humming.

"I missed you, Jonathan," Harley said, lacing her fingers through his. With her other hand she turned his head, gently, so he was facing her and not the Joker. A little of his color came back, but not much. "Did you miss me?"

He nodded, barely. "Are you mad still?"

"No. Not at all. Don't worry about that." Her voice was soft, the exaggerated accent she usually spoke in less noticeable, and the singsong quality entirely absent. Nigma imagined that was how she'd sounded as a psychiatrist. "You're all right, Jonathan. Breathe."

His eyes flicked in the Joker's direction. "I—he—"

"I know," she said, moving her head in a way that blocked the clown from his line of view. "It's okay. It's all right. Just breathe."

He nodded, closed his eyes, breathing slowly in and out. Harley's hands moved to his shoulders, above Nigma's arms, massaging. Nigma watched, silent, respecting her compassion. _How did someone so…_what was the word, caring? Forgiving?..._end up working for the Joker? _Then again, how had Jonathan ended up falling in love with him?

The man was a poison. A cancer, that couldn't be helped. Only destroyed, to keep it from spreading. Pity Batman would never do that. Still, it seemed _someone _should have tried by now. Whoever ended up putting the Joker down was unlikely to be punished. Commended even.

"What happens," he asked, as the TV screen changed from a shot of the boxes to police officers, harassed by reporter's questions, "if they deactivate the bombs before the Batman gets here? For all you know, they're doing that off camera, right now." He could just pictured the GPD charging in, guns blazing. If he, Harley, and Jonathan wouldn't be slaughtered as well, he'd have been fine with that.

"Oh, they won't dare touch 'em. I told 'em every last box is under constant surveillance, and getting too _close_ to one is grounds for me to set 'em off."

"But they're not," Jonathan said, opening his eyes. The fear was still there, but at least he wasn't hyperventilating anymore. Either he'd tired himself out panicking, or Harley was a miracle worker. "The only way you're watching is the TV."

"They don't know that."

"And if they find out?" Nigma asked, casting a nervous glance to the infirmary windows. All he saw was black, but that didn't mean a thing. Windows at night, when the lights were on inside, worked like two way mirrors; they might not be able to see out, but others could see in. A cop could be standing right in front of the window, taking note of their positions and actions at this very second, and they'd have no way of knowing.

_We're dead._

True to form, the Joker only giggled. "It'll be an interesting night then, won't it?"

"I think you and I have different definitions of interesting."

Joker shrugged again, went back to humming, which after a second shifted into singing. "I'll make you happy, baby, just wait and see. For every kiss you give me, I'll give you three."

_Wonderful. We're all going to die because he's got a depraved attempt at a crush._ If the threat of death hadn't been looming over them all like the sword of Damocles, it might have been amusing.

"Oh, since the day I saw you, I have been waiting for you. You know I will adore you 'til eternity."

_Damn clown. _Then again, Batman wasn't entirely blameless in this, either. Maybe if he didn't ignore the Joker for as long as humanly possible—Nigma wondered if he was ever troubled by the deaths his fail to act caused—they wouldn't be in this fine mess. Not that he'd ever be called on it, if they did all die. Not seriously, anyway. Now that he was back to being Gotham's hero, Batman could let the villains suffer all he wanted, and no one would bring it up. They didn't matter, not compared to the law-abiding citizens.

"So won't you please?"

Such was the view of the law-abiding citizens, anyway. Not that they'd ever say so out loud. But deep down, they didn't care what happened to the criminals. The Joker's stunt with the ferries; all that had proven was that deep down, no one wanted to get their hands dirty. Well, that might have been harsh, but it was essentially true. The "good people," the honestly selfless ones, were few and far in between.

"Be my little baby."

And the Batman was anything but a selfless person.

The idea of defending the city in secret, in theory, was a selfless act. Helping the helpless, showing the criminals that they didn't own the city, without asking for gratitude or help. The truth was far darker, far less pure. And far less selfless.

"Say you'll be my darling."

He didn't wear the mask to make the job thankless. He wore it for the same reason they all did, even when their identities had become common knowledge, as Nigma's was now. Partly for theatricality, and partly for protection. He wore the cowl for fear of retribution, either directed at himself or whatever loved ones a man as obsessed with the fight as himself could have. And he was clearly rich, all the gadgets proved that. Or provided for by rich people. Money like that brought power, and power with such resources could surely be used to help the city in better ways than dressing up like an animal and charging through the city in a tank. As for showing the criminals they weren't above the law, he seemed to forget that he wasn't himself. And Nigma got the feeling that whatever motivated him to fight crime, he was equally as satisfied by throwing his opponent through a window as he was with bringing anyone to justice.

"Be my baby now."

The doors opened and Nigma stiffened, Jonathan going cold in his arms. The Batman stood before them, and even from across the room, Nigma could tell that his eyes were burning, every bit of him anticipating and ready for a fight. He risked a glance down at Jonathan, wondering if he could undo the straps fast enough to hide with him under a bed before the Bat could come pouncing at them. Or he could take that as provocation. Damned either way. Great.

"Joker."

His voice was low, graveled, and barely able to contain the so-evident rage. Nigma shuddered in spite of himself; he felt Jonathan do the same, and Harley went rigid beside him, smile frozen, uncertain, on her face.

Joker only grinned wider than ever, hand that had disappeared into his coat at some point reemerging, clutching a detonator. "Whoa oh oh oh…oh."

* * *

AN: It's now thirty degrees. I'm not sure how that happened, as it seems to have gotten warmer now that the sun is _down, _but I'm not going to question it.

Nigma's thing about windows working as two way mirrors is why I absolutely must have all my shades drawn at night. The idea is just…augh.

What Joker's singing is "Be My Baby," by the Ronnettes.


	6. Pathetic

AN: This chapter's a bit shorter than usual, sorry.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

"Are you insane?" Nigma had all but forgotten the Batman was in the room, completely focused on the detonator in the Joker's hand. "You'll kill us all, yourself included!"

"True, but." He paused, sucking on the scars from the inside. "In the words of Isaac Asimov, 'If my doctor told me I only had six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.'"

"_What_?" His hands were unfastening Jonathan, as he cast a glance back toward the doorway. Batman remained still, watching the situation, thus far without comment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing." The Joker exhaled, rolling his eyes. "Fine, if you need it to make sense, how's 'I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter" work for you?"

"I think what he's sayin', Mistah J, is that he doesn't get why you wanna blow yourself up to begin with?" Harley offered, taking note of Nigma's actions and undoing Jonathan's other wrist strap. "It's because livin' isn't as important as making a good punch line, I think. Understand?"

He nodded, trying to control his panic long enough to figure out how to get off the bed without provoking an attack from the Batman. He didn't look to be in the best of moods—not that Nigma could blame him—and he'd rather not be close by if the man charged. Leaving the room was out of the question, doubtless, even with the Joker threatening to blow them to kingdom come, he was sure Batman wouldn't risk letting them break out. Moving as far as the next bed back could be allowable, but he had no idea how to bring the subject up at a moment tense as this.

"Batman?"

Nigma started a bit, before he could catch himself. Beside him, Harley did the same. He turned to regard Jonathan, who no longer looked seconds away from a heart attack. Not that he didn't still look horrified, just somewhat less. For the first time since entering, the Batman's eyes left the Joker, though he remained silent.

"C-can we move?" He tilted his head toward Nigma. "The two of us? Before you almost-but-not-kill him?" His eyes moved to the Joker, stiffening as if from fear of retribution, but the clown didn't move, his own gaze still locked on Batman, idly rolling the detonator in his hand.

"We're not involved in this," Nigma added. He'd think that was obvious, given that Jonathan had been restrained and his own response to the detonator, but for once if there was one person in Gotham he'd want to make sure he was entirely clear with, it was the Batman.

"Move."

"Thank you," Jonathan said, as Nigma half-pulled him up. He was still shaking rather badly, but his voice was more Scarecrow than his own as he spoke next. "This may not be the best time to bring it up, but I think you were wrong, about Arkham being helpful and all." He shot a pointed glance at the Joker. "Just a thought."

"You're not dying anymore."

"_Actually,_" the Joker said, scars turning down at the corners of his mouth, eyes narrowing as he waved the detonator, "considering that I can kill us all at any moment, he kinda is, Bats."

The vigilante looked back to the Joker, the tension in the room so thick it was almost tangible. Nigma recalled the paradox he'd once heard the Joker state in regards to his relationship with the Batman: a unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. A paradox really, was a riddle, and this riddle had a number of possible answers; the force destroys the object, the object stops the force, or the force blows up itself, the object, and all the innocent—and not-so innocent—bystanders along with them. He was fine with either of the first options, but the third was less than desirable. Extremely less.

"What do you want?" Batman asked, his tone implying that he wanted nothing more than to pound the Joker's head against the wall until there was nothing left. Nigma fought back a shiver. And he'd thought the Bat was frightening when intimidating _him._ It was nothing compared to the air he was projecting now. No wonder Joker considered himself the Batman's arch nemesis.

"I wanted to see you again," Joker said, tossing the detonator from hand to hand, making Nigma go cold with his callousness. "Didn't disappoint, for once."

"You put hundreds of lives at stake for that?"

Joker made that hideous rasping sound that must pass for a laugh, in his mind. "I _put _lives at stake? How long have I been out, Batsy? How many people have you let die by letting me slip through your fingers, time and time again? For having only one rule, you twist it a hell of a lot, don'tcha?"

He didn't respond. Nigma wondered how he could respond to that, really. It wasn't as if the Joker didn't have a point. True, Batman hadn't killed those people, but as a result of inaction or failure, they'd still died. Actually, each death could be considered a direct result of Batman's (and the court system's) failure to put the Joker down. God knew therapy wasn't going to stop him, though a jury of his peers didn't seem to grasp that. _When is a hero not a hero? _he mused, as much as he could muse with the threat of death still so close by.

"What _else_ do you want?" The else was as close to a shout as it could get, without being yelled. Nigma was able to keep his composure, but beside him Jonathan shuddered.

"Nothing." Joker's tone was singsong, legs swinging back and forth over the side of the bed. "Just you." Off the Batman's look, he giggled, straightened. "God, it's always business with you, isn't it? It's as if you don't care to see me at all. That hurts, you know?"

He got no answer. Nigma thought, for a second, that he saw a tremor run through the Bat's form, and that made it his heart race, even faster than the sight of the detonator had. He'd never managed to enrage the man this much, and least, not that he knew of, and he thanked his lucky stars for that. If it weren't for that one rule, the Joker would be lying dead in hundreds of pieces by now.

He might end up like that still, the way things were going.

"Loosen _up, _tight ass," Joker said, scars turning up. He was either too insane to know he was chancing death, or too insane to care. Nigma couldn't tell which, and he didn't particularly want to find out. What he wanted, more than anything at the moment, was to get as far from the clown as possible, before they were all killed. "Fine, if you insist on knowing exactly what's going on right this min_ute_, I want you to take me back to my cell, okay?"

There was a pause, in which everyone—excluding the Batman, he seemed to be too angry to feel much shock—gaped at the Joker, Harley included. Nigma guessed her lover hadn't actually bothered to explain the plan to her before this moment. That, or he'd changed his mind halfway through. The choices were equally likely, as was just about anything when it came to the Joker.

"You want me," Batman repeated, voice unnervingly flat. "To take you back to your cell."

He nodded, hard enough to send his hair whipping violently around his face. "Yep. I'm giving myself in. Her, too," he added, glancing at Harley like an afterthought. "Though, I really don't care who takes her back. But you're gonna be my escort, or…" he looked away from his bewildered girlfriend to the detonator. "_Kaboom_."

_Unbelievable. _Nigma was torn between shock, and simple disgust. He'd risked all this because he wanted _attention_? Unless there was more to the plan, but he didn't want to consider that possibility. He wanted the Batman to drag the Joker to a padded cell, and leave him to rot. Or kill him. Or anything, as long as it got the detonator out of his hand.

"If you're giving yourself in, why do you need me here to do it?" His voice was still unnaturally steady, with an undercurrent of quiet rage. Nigma was reminded of a tightly coiled viper, right before it struck. He just hoped he was out of range of the fangs.

"'Cause you make me feel secure. Arkham's a scary place, you know, I don't like coming back without a familiar face to see me off." He paused, eyes breaking his staring match with the Batman to take in the rest of him. "Not that I can _see _all that much on your face…don't suppose I could persuade you to take it off? As a favor, you know, to—"

"Enough." Oh, if words could kill, that one would have been slow and excruciating. "Why do you want me here, really?"

"Broken record much?" Joker frowned again. "I mean, listen to yourself. Always all 'why this, why me, what do you want?' Communication's not one of your finer points, huh?"

"_Joker_—"

"Okay, okay, don't get your Kevlar in a bunch. What are you so angry about, anyway? I thought you _liked _it when criminals gave themselves up willingly." He tilted his head back in Jonathan's direction, without turning. "Certainly took advantage of the opportunity when _that_ little whore let himself be caught, didn'tcha?"

Jonathan made a choked noise that Nigma realized, after a second, was supposed to be a laugh. It had all the humor of a funeral dirge, and made him wonder if his friend hadn't gone back over the edge. "You called _me _pathetic?" he asked, in a scathing tone Nigma hadn't heard from him in a long, long time.

Joker turned slightly, only enough to let himself see Jonathan in his peripheral vision, grasping tightly onto the detonator to dissuade the Bat from any sudden moves. With the brown of his eye blocking Nigma's view of the white from that angle, it blended in with the black paint, like a gaping void into his face. It was said eyes were the window to the soul, and for once in the Joker's case, that was accurate. Soulless. "_Ex_cuse me, Jonny?"

"You called me pathetic." Jonathan repeated. He was still shaking, though less so, no longer out of fear so much as the twitching he'd had ever since going off the pills. "For the c—for what I did. Look at yourself. You did all this, to make him pay attention to you for what, the three minutes it'll take to walk down the hall? That's pathetic. _You're _pathetic."

"Jonathan—" Nigma whispered. _Great, so now the anger comes out. Wonderful timing._

"Oy, _Casper_," the Joker snapped, and Nigma couldn't be sure, but he thought his eyes narrowed. "This is between me and Batman. _My _nemesis. _My _other half. _Mine. _Say another word while we're talking, and the next rose I give you is gonna be shoved down your throat, got it?" He turned his head in their direction a bit more, glanced up and down Jonathan's body. "And what, can't even bring yourself to say _cuuuuuutsss_?" he drew the word out, inflection making it sound almost obscene. "Yeah, that's pathetic. Just. Like. You."

Jonathan reddened, breaking their eye contact. Joker smirked, and Harley looked back to find the Batman advancing. "Mistah J!"

He whirled back to face him, raising the detonator. "Ah _ah_, I wouldn't try anything if I were you. So what's it gonna be, Batsy? Are you taking me back to my cell, or are you gonna let yourself die, along with everyone else in this hellhole?"

There was a standoff, for a moment, in which the Batman and the Joker stared at each other, no words exchanged. The Batman's eyes were blazing with hatred, the Joker's with excitement. Nigma had the feeling the clown really didn't care about the outcome, that dying in such close proximity to the Bat—as a direct result of the man's failure to act—would be the high point of his life, if things were to go that way.

Then the Batman broke the moment, as Nigma knew he would. Still, it was a relief when it happened, to have it confirmed. "Fine. Give me the detonator."

Joker laughed. "Yeah _right. _If I do that, you'll just beat me unconscious and leave. Besides, it doesn't much matter if you've got mine, 'cause Harley-girl's got one too."

Everyone turned to regard Harley, who grinning, pulled a detonator from her boot.

"If I don't have a detonator, I have no reason to believe you won't set it off."

"I could give you my word as a Spaniard," Joker suggested, grin fading as the Batman remained stotic. "Look, Bats, I'm not gonna drag you all the way down here, get you to agree to what I want, and then blow you up. What sense does that make?"

"When have you ever made sense?"

"I _always_ make sense. It's the rest of the world that's crazy." He noted the Batman's unchanged expression, sighed. "You'll be right next to me, the whole time. If I try anything, do you honestly think _you _would have much trouble, subduing little old _me_?"

Nigma had to force back a laugh himself, at that one. As if brute strength meant anything in a fight against the Joker. He'd seen the man fight, and despite his lack of balance or finesse, he fought dirty, and he fought well. The Batman seemed to feel the same, from his response.

"You could have any number of weapons hidden on your person."

"You're _so _para_noid_." He shrugged off his jacked, holding a hand up in warning as Batman stepped forward. "Hold it, I'm not doing anything. Look, the jacket's gone, as is anything with it. Satisfied?"

"No."

"It figures," he huffed, then smirked, leaning back on his free hand. He licked his lips, tilted his head, and spread his legs across the mattress, one over Harley, like a stripper. An inexperienced one, who was trying to convey sexy and had no idea how to go about it. "Still not happy? Go ahead, _search _me."

_He's dead, _Nigma thought, disgusted, horrified, and unable to look away. _He is so ridiculously dead._

* * *

AN: Joker's second death quote comes from Winston Churchill.

"Loosen up, tight ass!" is a quote from _Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth_, and "I could give you my word as a Spaniard" is from _The Princess Bride._

"Casper" refers to _Casper the Friendly Ghost, _one of the least frightening ghosts ever.


	7. Escort

AN: I meant to have this up at a reasonable time, but ended up catching up with my sister over Facebook. Sorry.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

_I don't kill_, Bruce reminded himself, forcing to ignore the overwhelming desire to beat the Joker until he was just grinding pieces of bone and tissues into the ground. _I don't kill, no matter how much he's begging for it. I'm above that. _He _had _to be above that, because if he couldn't, he'd be no better than the scum sitting before him, offering himself in the most perverse way he could. Well, maybe not the _most_ perverse, but he didn't want to consider alternatives.

Joker remained in that pose, unmoving. "Sooo? What's it gonna be?"

"You're insane."

"Your point? Your views on my sanity notwithstanding, I remain _fully_ capable of killing us all. So, you can search me, or not search me, or just stand there and let me destroy everything. You're good at that."

It occurred to Batman that he'd never made a rule against excessive violence, at least not formally. And at this moment, the guilt he'd surely feel tomorrow seemed worth it in exchange for the satisfaction of knocking the Joker's teeth out. And breaking a few of his ribs.

"Like with that _chick_," the Joker went on. "What's-her-face, the one you let get blown to pieces? Ooh, _Rachel_, wasn't i—"

"_Whore._"

The both of them stopped; Joker mid-taunt, Batman mid-pounce. It took a second for him to figure out just who had spoken, the mention of Rachel's name from that monster's mouth had almost pushed him over the edge. It would have, if he'd kept on. With effort, he forced himself to control his breathing, turned to face the speaker.

Jonathan Crane. For a moment, Bruce thought his comment had been directed at Rachel, until he followed the doctor's contemptuous gaze and realized he was staring at the Joker. The Joker blinked, several times, but remained still.

"_What_ did you just say?" His voice shook, slightly, on 'what', but remained controlled otherwise. Disturbingly controlled, considering the source.

"I called you a whore," Crane said matter-of-factly, as Nigma went white beside him. "Which you are. I mean, honestly. Do you hear the things coming out of your mouth?"

"Jonathan. Do you have a death wish?"

"Do you?" Expression softening, though only slightly, he turned away from the Joker, to face Batman. "This may have escaped your notice, but you were seconds away from death there. Yes, what I said was, as far as I'm concerned, completely true, but it had the added advantage of distracting you. The both of you. So you didn't get attacked and accidentally kill us all." He paused, looked back at the clown. "So you're welcome."

Bruce forced himself to relax, as much as possible given the circumstances. He _had _come dangerously close to losing control, and that could not happen, not when the detonators were still out of his possession, and working. If the Joker felt gratitude at the explanation, he didn't show it. Beside him, Harleen Quinzel straightened, looking over her shoulder at Crane. "Thanks, Jonathan. That was really—"

Joker pushed her off the bed, on the side away from Batman. He heard the detonator hit the floor, but Harley was back up in an instant, having retrieved it. "It was not 'really' _anything_," the Joker said, "besides stupid and asking to get hurt. Got it?"

She nodded, looking down.

"Everything is asking to get hurt, when it's around you," Crane said. Nigma tried putting a hand over his companion's mouth and was brushed off. "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees, I think."

"Funny, last time you got on your knees for me, I seem to remember you enjoyed it quite a bit, slut." He gave a glance to Crane, though for only a second, and he'd looked back before Batman could make a move.

Crane went red. "I—I wasn't even _on _my knees, idiot."

"It's an ex_press_ion, Sherlock."

If there was one thing he could go forever without hearing about, it was the sex lives of these maniacs. "Enough."

"Agreed." Joker leaned back again, having not moved out of that depraved pose. "So are you _up_ for this or not, Batsy?" He giggled; beside him, Quinzel cast a glance to either side as if looking for a place to hide. Smarter than she looked, Batman reflected, just barely withstanding the desire to send the clown flying through the windows.

"Take your shoes off."

Joker tilted his head. "What?"

He wasn't about to forget the switchblades concealed inside. "Your shoes. Take them off."

"But I _need _my shoes," Joker protested, though his tone suggested he was arguing for the sake of arguing, rather than any genuine concern. "I mean, what if I was to step on something? I could get tetanus. You wouldn't want that, would you, Bats? You'd be sad, wouldn't you, if that happened?"

_If by sad you mean laughing about it whenever Alfred's not listening._ All right, taking pleasure in another's suffering was not acceptable. Didn't make the idea any less amusing. He didn't answer, only stood, waiting.

"Fiiiiine." The Joker pouted, then smiled abruptly and sat up, unlacing his shoes. He began humming something, which Bruce recognized after a moment to be 'It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." He kicked his shoes off, brought his legs apart again, grinning. "Happy?"

"Stand up."

"Hold this, Harl." Joker gave his detonator to her and stood, straightening his clothes. "So, how do you want me, darl—"

Batman's hand closed around his throat, cutting him off, shoving him back into the wall. His head hit cinderblock with a sound that Bruce felt guilty pleasure upon hearing. Anyway, it was necessary for someone like the Joker to be restrained to search him. He hadn't really hurt him, not judging by the laughter. He reassured himself that he would have felt guilt if he had.

"Mistah J!" Quinzel's eyes went wide with fear, an expression Batman was used to seeing, used to causing. Still, though he'd adjusted to seeing that look from the faces of those beyond the criminals he was trying to inspire terror in, he'd never gotten comfortable with it. With being viewed as the monster. Quinzel may be insane, but it was unnerving to see a woman who looked like a damsel in distress—albeit one in face paint and a clown costume—staring at him as if he was the dragon.

"'Skay, Harley-girl." Even with half his air supply cut off, he still managed to sound cheerful. God, how he hated him. "I like it rough."

"For the love of God," Crane muttered.

"Don't be jealous, Jonny. You had your turn with this, remember?" His smile faltered, for a second. "Certainly spoke fondly of it. A _lot_."

He was taken aback at that, though he hid it. He assumed the Joker was referring to the time he'd searched Crane, which had not, by any stretch of the imagination, been pleasant for either of them. It had ended with Crane in hysterics and him bleeding and poisoned. Either Crane had an incredibly warped idea of pleasure or the Joker was lying. Well, that was obvious. The Joker was lying. That's all he ever did.

Searching the Joker, as he expected, was not easy. Not because he struggled, but because he was stocked with enough weapons to provide for a small army. All of which had been quite deliberately placed around his hips. And the obscene moaning sounds he kept making whenever Batman touched him were seriously making Bruce reconsider his one rule. He wondered if it wouldn't be easier, less likely to lead to an accidental murder, if he just knocked the clown out, but he couldn't risk it, as long as Quinzel had the detonators.

He let go as soon as he'd made sure there were no weapons left, and the Joker slumped back against the wall, not out of shortage of breath, or pain. His expression was of exaggerated satisfaction, like a porn actress, made even more ridiculous by the makeup. He reached out, took the detonator back from Harley, then put his free hand behind his ear and brought in back down, cigarette in his grasp. "Got a light, sailor?"

Batman chose not to dignify that with a response. The Joker shrugged, and grinning, put the unlit cigarette in his mouth anyway. "So, we're off?"

He shot a glance to Quinzel, the detonator still in her hand. "How do I know she won't set that off?"

"Give it to him, Harl."

Wordless, she handed it over and Joker stepped back, putting his own detonator out of reach. Batman considered the situation. Locking the Joker up was a given; he had to be subdued. But there was the matter of the other three rogues, all notorious for their own breakouts. He could hardly trust them left unattended, but it wasn't as if he could bring them on this miserable little expedition. Crane was obviously not on good terms with the Joker, and Nigma more than likely didn't want to be involved, but bringing all of them at once was just asking to be attacked by one and have the others follow suit. Nor was there time to hunt down a staff member; for all he knew, everyone in charge of the patients had been killed. And besides, it wasn't wise to make the Joker any more impatient than he was now.

Currently, he was shuffling from one foot to the other, like an impatient child. "Hey. Batsy."

The only choice left seemed to be intimidating. It was said that Jonathan Crane was the master of fear. And depending on the situation, he was. But if Batman was trying, he took the title easily.

"You know what I can do." Ignoring the Joker for the moment, he regarded the other three, meeting their eyes one at a time. His voice was hardly human now, becoming something darker, rougher. "I'm going to leave you here. Alone. And once I'm through with him, I'm coming back." He ignored the whining sound the Joker made at that, went on. "And I expect all of you to be here. You can try leaving. You might even get away. But I will make you regret it." It wasn't a promise so much as a statement of fact, and they knew it. "Understand?"

Crane and Nigma could only nod assent. Quinzel muttered the smallest, most timid "Yes sir," he'd ever heard.

"Good." He took the Joker by the arm, tightly. Tightly enough that he thought he heard bones grinding. "Come on."

Joker cast a glance over his shoulder at Crane as they walked, a smug look which Batman assumed was meant to convey success, 'I've got him and you don't.' He steadied himself to keep from applying the pressure necessary to actually break bones. It was bad enough that the man had to threaten his city, and destroy all he'd worked for. That he was a constant reminder of Rachel's death—and the deaths of so many others—and Harvey's downfall didn't help in the least. But to throw the grotesque mockery of sexuality on top of things, that was crossing a line. Of course, the Joker was all about crossing lines, not crossing them so much as charging over them with a tank full of dead bodies, driving that tank into an orphanage, and then capturing all the orphans and abandoning them in an adult film store. The man was the definition of excess, along with other words such as evil and psychotic.

They got about three feet until the hall before Joker spat the cigarette out and whistled. "_Damn, _that was a speech. You oughta write for politicians, you know that?"

"Quiet." He was trying to walk as fast as possible, but the Joker was dragging his feet and for such a comparatively thin man, it was impeding their progress a lot.

"Wait!" The Joker stopped moving altogether. The cry was so sudden, so seemingly sincere that Batman was stunned, for a moment. "Wait a second."

"What?" he growled, not in the mood to hear anything the clown had to say, even if it was a warning of an oncoming apocalypse.

"I want you to hold my hand." His expression was the picture of innocence, if the picture had been slashed and then painted on.

He could only stare. "_What_?"

"I want you. To hold my hand." He repeated it as if they were separate sentences, as if that would make the request less horrible to hear. "C'mon, Bats, aren't we friends?"

"No." He tried pulling the clown forward, to no effect. He'd gone stiff as a board, the static pose more unnerving than it should have been on the usually hyperactive man. "I've already given into all your other idiotic requests. Come _on._"

"No. This isn't any good at _all_. It's how you moved Jonathan. I'm _better _than him, our re_la_tionship is closer than he'll ever be to you. So I deserve a more _intimate _touch."

_For God's sake._ "We do not have a relationship."

Joker pouted. "Denial's more than just a river in Egypt, you know."

_As if you're on to talk. _"And I prefer dealing with him anyway. At least he can be reasonable."

The energy of the hallway itself seemed to change as Joker went stiffer than ever. His eyes narrowed, scars turning down. He brought up the hand holding the detonator so slowly, there were times when it seemed he wasn't moving at all. "Hold my hand. _Now_."

"Fine." All right, so making the Joker jealous was a terrible idea. At least when he had access to weapons. He'd keep that in mind. He took the gloved hand, tried to ignore the way the Joker instantly relaxed they made contact. He should really be immune to mind games like this, but touching the person who had threatened his city so intimately was like touching a leper. "Happy?"

"Yep." Joker tried leaning up against him and he stepped to the side. Detonator or not, there was no way that would happen. The Joker regained his balance, frowned. "You know, I get the feeling you're not happy to see me."

"You don't say."

"_Aw, _c'mon, Batsy. Don't be like that. I mean, I didn't kill anybody this time, doesn't that make you happy?"

He paused. That couldn't be true. "If you didn't kill anyone, then what happened to all the employees?"

"Locked in the supply closets." He noted Batman's dubious look and pouted more than ever. "Look, this is _me _we're talking about, Bats. Do you honestly think I'd bother to hide bodies if I went on a rampage? You should be grateful here, really. I mean, I _wanted _to kill 'em. I had—well, not plans, _ideas_ I guess—for the corpses. I was gonna pose them all with the bomb boxes like they were exchanging gifts. Cool, huh?"

"You're disgusting."

"Yeah, yeah, I can see you're less than thrilled. The point is, I _didn't_, because I knew _you _wouldn't like it. Doesn't that make you happy? Doesn't that make me a _little_ bit trustworthy?"

"If I thought for even a second that you did it out of a sense of right and wrong, it might." He came to a halt in front of the Joker's cell. The door was locked, of course. Fantastic. Now he'd have to lock pick with a homicidal clown standing nearby, holding a detonator. Things just got better and better, didn't they?

"Aw. It proves you're a good influence, doesn't it? Here." He reached into his vest, pulled out a pass key. "And now I'll be safely locked up. I like this cell, I can see the Batsignal out the window, kinda sorta. The light it casts, anyway, the window's too high to really see it. You got what you wanted and nobody got hurt. That's a good day, you know. You should appreciate it."

He opened the door, pushed the Joker inside. "Give me the detonator."

Joker giggled. "Wanna know something funny?"

"No." He reminded himself that, tempting as it was, it was not all right to beat an unarmed man into unconsciousness, particularly one in the cell of an asylum. "I want the detonator."

"You'll _like _this, though." He stepped back, holding it behind his back. "You'll think it's funny."

"I don't have time for games. Hand that over, now."

"Fine." He held his hand out, the detonator gone the instant it was in Batman's reach. "The bombs don't work, by the way."

Batman stopped, halfway through the act of slamming the door. "What?"

"The bombs. They're not hooked up to anything. And the detonators aren't wired to blow anything either. Nothing at all." Joker smirked, glancing over the door of his cell, where the light from the window on the other side, from the Batsignal, shone on the wall. "Funny, huh?"

Batman slammed the door in his face and walked away, not looking back.

* * *

AN: "Yeah, yeah, I can see you're less than thrilled" is from the Batman The Animated Series episode "Mad Love," where it was spoken by Harley, after she's explained her death trap to Batman. Harley's "Yes sir" comes from 'Harlequinade,' after Batman yells at her for pressing random buttons in the Batmobile.

'It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood' is the opening song from _Mr. Roger's Neighborhood_, which Mr. Rogers would sing while taking off his shoes after coming in.


	8. Obligations

AN: Apologies for the delay on this one. I was distracted, first by the film _Airplane! _being shown in my dorm lounge, and then by _Mystery Science Theater 3000._ Also, strange things keep happening when I try to write, such as my friends holding me down and tickling me. And my best friend helpfully telling them to go for my knees, while holding me immobile. Good times.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Scarecrow showed up the instant Joker and the Batman left the room, regretting he'd ever left in the first place. Jonathan, it would appear, had lost all sense of self-preservation about the time he regained most of his sanity. Scarecrow had realized, around the time of Jonathan's 'you're pathetic' speech, that they'd very likely provoked the Joker into a killing rage. At that point, it would have been wise to take control again, but the idea of being in a room with not only a furious Joker, but an angry Bat as well, seemed about as bad as a slow, painful death. Some might call that cowardly. He thought of it as sensible. Or it would have been, if his other half hadn't fucked it up.

"I wish," Harley said to no one in particular, as Scarecrow stood up, "that he'd told me the whole plan _before _he told Bats."

"He didn't tell you?" Nigma blinked. Why he was surprised was anyone's guess; Scarecrow would have thought someone so good at figuring others out would know that a person like the Joker keep things to himself unless it was necessary. Or amusing to him.

Scarecrow made his way to the window, glanced out. The police cars were still out there. _Well, obviously. _They would be, until the bombs were deactivated at least, and probably past that. Definitely past that, actually, as there must be bodies to be identified. Joker tended to kill much like people tended to breathe.

"Nah. He usually explains as he goes. Or just never."

All right, so actually _leaving _the building at present wouldn't work. No matter, it wasn't as if Arkham was lacking in places to hide, especially if the staff had been taken out. All he needed was to get out of sight; somewhere the police wouldn't know about or think to search. And the basement of the hospital contained many such places, that the GPD wouldn't have discovered even when they'd found his operation with the water system. The basement wasn't the lowest level of the building; there were more rooms beneath it and rooms hidden in it that didn't appear on any of the blueprints. He knew there was no record of them because he'd checked, back when he was the administrator.

After all, he couldn't very well test the fear toxin with the chance of someone walking in.

"What if it was essential to the plan, though, for him to tell you what he wanted beforehand? Say, if you were going to be separated?"

"Oh, he'd tell me then." She paused, bit her lip. "Or, make me think on my feet. A lot of the time he doesn't really _plan_, see, he's just got an idea and makes the specifics up as he goes."

"Or he has it in his head the whole time and doesn't let you in on it for laughs."

_Nigma's sensible, _Scarecrow reflected, searching the room for a possible weapon. _Too bad he couldn't be around when Jonathan fell for that bastard._ There was nothing, save for an IV stand left over from when the doctors had been giving him antibiotics. It certainly wasn't ideal—the bandages and metal rods in his hand made grasping anything difficult, and that wasn't even taking into account swinging it around, but it was the best he had in limited time. Every second he stayed here searching was a second wasted, the Batman that much closer to returning.

"Well, maybe, but he doesn't do that to be _mean._"

"Sure he doesn't."

It occurred to Scarecrow that Batman had only searched the Joker. "Harley," he said, and they both looked up. "Do you have a knife? Or a gun, or anything?"

She stared, expression blank. "Why are you holding an IV stand?"

_Oh, forget it. _Even if she did, the time it would take to get it wouldn't be worth the risk. "Never mind." He turned for the door, took a few steps before Jonathan made him stop. He looked back. "Do the two of you want to come?"

Now they were both staring with blank looks. "What are you doing?" Nigma asked, taking in the stand in Scarecrow's hands and his position to the door. His eyes lit up. "Wait, Jonathan you can't—"

"I can, and I am. Though I take it you're not." He shrugged, turned away again. "Well, see you again sometime—"

"Jonathan." Harley had that infuriating psychiatrist's tone in her voice, and what's worse, Jonathan actually wanted to hear what she had to say, causing them to linger in the doorway. Scarecrow could have killed her, for this distraction and for her earlier talk of not being angry. He knew the real reason she'd forgiven him, and it was because the Joker had beaten him so badly. Harley got hit, yes, and often, but she'd never been hurt that critically, and Scarecrow was sure she'd used that to convince herself it meant the Joker loved her more. Forgiveness by near fatal injuries. _Bitch. _If only he didn't care about what she had to say.

"What?" he asked, grip tightening on the IV stand. The injured hand burned.

"Jonathan, you can't leave. Batman's going to come back any minute now—"

"All the more reason for me to get going, then."

"You can't." Nigma stood. "You're still half-starved."

_Jesus Christ. _If this came down to a fight, there was no way he'd get out of here in time. "Half being the operative word. And given that I'm not out of touch with reality anymore, I'll remember that food is essential for survival this time."

"You're still hallucinating."

"No, I'm not." Not hardly, anyway. Enough that it could be ignored.

"Well, you're still shaking."

"So what? People shake. It's not as if it's a major handicap. I'm _fine._"

"You weren't a few minutes ago," Harley said, in that enraging calm voice. As if she knew what he'd been through. As if she understood. "Jonathan, you _need _to stay."

_Unbelievable. _Did they not understand the impact of his latest loss of control? He'd insulted the Joker, and not only that, he'd done it in front of the Batman. If the Joker took being made fun of badly under normal circumstances, he didn't want to think about the consequences of mocking him when the Bat was present. Leaving was a necessity, not a choice. "I don't protest when _you _break out."

"That's different," they protested, together.

"Right." He fought the urge to roll his eyes, as he turned away again. It was pathetic, really, how the inmates here managed to convince themselves that they were sane. If he was Jonathan, or in a charitable mood, he might have thought it sad. He was not in a charitable mood, however. "Well, I'm off."

"_Jonathan_—"

He stepped through the door.

And immediately, upon turning into the hall, found himself face to face with the Batman.

_God_damn _it._

"What are you doing?" His voice indicated that there would likely be pain for this transgression. Lots and lots of pain.

So of course, that habit of being sarcastic at the worst possible moment resurfaced. Great. "If that's not readily apparent to you, I can't imagine how you manage the intelligence necessary to put that suit on, let alone fight crime."

"You're not leaving." It was remarkable, really, how standing so stoically, he was still able to project such anger. And cause such fear.

"I disagree." The Batman took a step forward, and he raised the IV stand, moving back. "You know, it's funny, isn't it, how you mentioned that the Joker could find me no matter where I was, if he wanted? And I can't help but notice, he never caught up with me until I came back here."

"Only because you hadn't attracted his interest yet."

"_You're _the reason I did to begin with." He took another step back, noted Nigma and Harley watching from the doorway. He couldn't count on help from them, not when the Batman was this angry and they weren't—that he knew of—armed. Besides, they likely still thought that he should stay.

"You would have attracted it on your own, eventually. Or he'd have gotten bored and decided to track you down for fun."

"Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know now, will we?"

"You need to be here."

Oh, he was so _sick _of hearing that. "Right. I need to stay, because getting killed or mutilated in revenge is going to help matters so much. And no, I _don't_. The only reason I'd ever belong in a place like this is entirely _your_ fault."

"It was your toxin."

"And _you _force-fed it to me. Ergo, the damage it caused is your fault, much like it's your fault that the Joker came here tonight."

"If you honestly believe that you weren't unbalanced before the toxin, that just proves that you're insane."

"Says the man dressed up as a bat." He glanced over the costume, smirking slightly. "And don't try and justify it by saying it protects your identity; there's hiding your face and then there's wearing bat ears. No, it's theatrical, isn't it? To scare people. I'm not the only one using fear as a weapon, so don't try and act like you're coming from some moral high ground."

"There's a difference."

Some counter-argument. "I don't see one."

"You wouldn't."

Honestly, what kind of response was that? He didn't even bother to point out how idiotic it sounded, he only tightened his grip on the stand once more, ignoring the wetness he felt under the bandages. The stitches had reopened. Wonderful. The cherry on top of the world's worst sundae. "I'm leaving."

"You're not."

"Yes, I am. And you can't stop me." Jonathan, taking the logical side for the first time in months, muttered that provoking the Batman, especially after he'd just dealt with the Joker, was very bad idea. Scarecrow was too angry to care. He was going to _die _if he stayed, possibly this very night—it never took the Joker long to break out—and _no one_ cared. Least of all this idiot, despite the fact that he was supposed to care for everyone, villain or saint.

The Bat took another step forward, dodging the IV stand swung at him without so much of a glance at it. And another. And another. "You know I can stop you."

"Really?" Some part of him knew he'd been defeated, but he wouldn't—_couldn't_—give up. It would be signing his own death warrant, suicide, really. And despite the fact that there was nothing worth living for, he couldn't do that.

He didn't care how badly the Batman hurt him, or how many wounds this would reopen. He _had _to get out of here. He couldn't let himself be led back, and drugged, and left to die. He was better than that. He _deserved _better than that. Experiments and murders aside, he did not deserve to be left to die. Not at the hands of the Joker. "I'd like to see you try."

* * *

Christ, how he hated being strapped to the bed.

Damn the idiot to hell who'd invented restraints, and damn the idiot who'd insisted Arkham be so well-equipped in the tools of restraint.

Well, come to think of it, that had been him. Many considered it cruel to tie people down unless it was absolutely necessary, but they didn't appreciate how much easier it made taking an experiment's vitals when he or she was tied down, rather than running around the room screaming. All right then, never mind damning the one who'd bought the stupid things, damn the Batman for subduing him so easily and then tying him down, just to add insult to injury. Or to stop any other escape attempts, as he'd said. Whatever. It amounted to the same thing.

"You _can't _leave me like this. Not while he's here."

The Batman gave him that look again, the one that bordered on pity mixed disgust. "He's not going to kill you."

"Yes, he is. If I stay here, I'll die."

"You won't die. If he was going to kill you, he would have done it the night you freed Dent. You're too much fun to him."

_And that makes things better _how? "So I'll be tortured and mutilated beyond recognition. You can't leave me here."

"That's not going to happen."

He felt his patience give out completely, knowing he was begging but unable to stop. "Your wishful thinking is not going to stop me from getting hurt, bastard. You told me that my life wasn't worth less than anyone else's, but you're proving that you don't value it by putting me in this situation and walking off. It doesn't matter that he came back willingly, the fact remains that Arkham has _never _been able to contain the Joker, and that I angered him. Greatly. You can tell yourself you've done everything you can, and maybe that'll help you sleep through the night, but he's going to get out of his cell and I'm going to suffer for it. And that will be _all your fault._ And you know it."

For a moment he thought he'd be hit and stiffened, wishing he could raise his arms to defend himself. But the blows didn't come. The Batman was still standing there, looking down at him. It made no sense. He never held back in their fights. But then, Scarecrow was never strapped down in their fights either. _Of course. _It was typical, just that misguided set of "morals" at work again. He wouldn't hit someone who couldn't hit back, but he would leave him here to die. Because at the end of the day, Jonathan Crane didn't matter as much as protecting the rest of Gotham.

"I can't let you leave. I've seen what you can do to the city."

"You've also what the Joker does to those who cross him. I will die. _You can't leave me here._"

"I don't have a choice."

He sighed. It was almost sad, how the Batman clung so desperately to these rules of his, as if he'd ever make a lasting difference. If the shadow of death weren't looming so close by, he might have been moved. "There's always a choice…" And he fell silent. He couldn't do it. Life at stake or not, he couldn't let himself lose face that much.

Jonathan could. "_Please._" He moved his hand, as if to try taking the Batman's in it. It was only a word, but it pained him to say nearly as bad as the nail gun had. It was one thing to say it when he was out of his mind, it didn't count there. But he _never _asked for the help of others, not unless there was no other choice. He'd learned long ago that people were selfish and not to be trusted, and saying 'please,' asking for aid, was like opening himself back up to learn that all over again.

He had no choice, though, not unless he wanted to die. "Please."

And the Batman's hand reached out, straightening the glasses on Jonathan's face so quickly it might as well not have been there at all. It was bizarrely comforting, though he wouldn't let himself admit it. Besides, given the situation, in terms of helping him feel secure, it was a drop in the ocean.

"You have to stay here. There's no way around that. You won't get hurt." He paused, one of the rare times Jonathan had ever seen the Batman unsure. "I'll make sure of that."

"Do you promise?" Again, it was painful to say, but again he couldn't help but say it.

"Yes." He looked as if he were going to say something else but faltered, staring down at him. Jonathan stared back up and realized, for the first time, that the Batman had brown eyes. Obviously, he must have seen them before, but he'd never really noticed. It was unnerving; a reminder that under that mask, there was a person, not just the demon he'd seen that night in the basement of Arkham and in the nightmares since.

It should have been reassuring. In reality, it was even more terrifying. Because if the Batman was only a man, he could fall victim to the Joker as easily as anyone else.

And then the Batman was gone, without another word, and in the next moment, Nigma and Harley were over him, trying to be comforting. They might have, if he was listening. But he'd moved on, and tuned them out, as well as Leland when she arrived sometime later. Whatever they had to say, it wasn't as important as the matter at hand. The Joker was going to get out, promises or not, so it was either fight or flight. And fight would end in his death. So he lay there, staring up at the ceiling, planning his escape.


	9. One Dialogue

AN: So I know I always start by thanking everyone for the reviews, but seriously, thanks! I've got over a hundred reviews, and I don't even have ten chapters yet. That is awesome. All of you are awesome. Thanks for the reviews!

And while I'm at it, thanks for reading this in general, whether or not you comment!

* * *

Bruce lay on the carpet, trying to remember exactly how he'd gotten there.

It seemed one second he'd been walking to the bedroom, half-fantasizing about his bed and its satin sheets, and the next thing he knew, he was laying sideways on the carpet, staring at entry way wall of the newly rebuilt manor. To end up like this with no knowledge of it meant he'd probably fallen asleep mid-step, a bad sign if ever there was one, but the carpet was soft enough that it was hard to be concerned for his health. It occurred to him on some level that sleeping on a floor would make for a lot of stiffness and pain when he woke up, which would hinder Batman tonight, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come. It shouldn't take long.

"Master Wayne?" He heard concern in the voice.

He sighed. "Hello, Alfred." So much for sleep. This was going to lead to one of those lectures on caring for himself before he cared for the city. Well, not a lecture, not really. Alfred didn't lecture, so much as he implied.

"May I ask what you're doing?"

"I'm…enjoying the carpet."

"Enjoying the carpet?" The worry was mostly gone from his voice now, replaced with that dry, fantastically British tone.

"Yes. It's soft."

"I see. Personally, I would try the rug in the master bedroom. It's entirely wool. The one you're taking in is a blend. Not as soft."

He would have smiled, but that would take energy. "I'll keep that in mind the next time I stop to appreciate the furnishings. Thanks."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

* * *

_All right? _He could have slapped her for asking such an idiotic question. He would have, but he didn't feel like being thrown in a straitjacket so soon after he'd been let out of the restraints. Honestly, though. All he'd been through in the past day, and Leland had the gall to ask if he was all right? He'd never asked such stupid questions when he was a psychiatrist, of that he was sure. He'd have forced himself to commit ritualistic suicide if he'd ever been that much of a moron.

"Jonathan?"

Ah. He'd forgotten to answer. "Would you be all right, in my position?"

Her smile faltered, almost imperceptibly, before going back to normal. Leland hated it when he answered in the form of a question, which barely counted as an answer at all, as far as she was concerned. Which was why he did it as much as possible.

"I…" She tapped her fingers against the file on her desk, softly. "I would feel nervous. Do you feel that way?"

Nervous? The Joker was going to kill him and her best guess was nervous? Unbelievable. "No." Which wasn't a lie, really—not that he cared about lying to her—because nervous couldn't begin to cover it. Terrified would have been better, but he wasn't actually sure if there was a word in the English language to convey this level of fear. It was like being on fear toxin without the fun little hallucinations.

Leland made that throat clearing sound which indicated she was holding in a sigh. She did that a lot during his sessions, he'd noticed. She did it back when they worked together as well, but less then. "Jonathan, I know that you're unhappy to be here."

_Unhappy?_ And here he'd thought nervous was an understatement. Jesus Christ, where had this woman been when they were handing out brains? He'd have to be insane _not _to be unhappy in this situation. He'd have to actually belong in a place like this, to be satisfied with life at the moment.

"And I can't blame you if, given recent events, you're not in the mood to hear what I have to say right now. But I want you to know that I want to help you, and if you want to talk to me about anything, I'll listen. All right?"

He supposed he'd have to respond to that, inane as it was. "All right."

"Okay." She marked something down on her notepad, looked back up. "How are you feeling?"

* * *

"I'm fine."

"With all due respect, Master Wayne, you don't look it."

"Do I ever?" he asked, thinking of the scars and bruises covering his body at any given moment. Still, this was the first time Alfred had ever found him nearly unconscious on the floor. "I'm just tired."

"There's tired, and then there's exhausted. When did you last sleep?"

"Well…" He realized that he didn't really know. Definitely not last night, and not today. After the inmates had been subdued and the staff freed, he'd had to check the bombs to make sure they weren't wired to anything. Taking the Joker's word would have been idiotic. Though the clown had been honest for once, which actually annoyed Batman far more than it should have. Yes, it was better for everyone involved, but it also made the entire incident a waste of his time.

After that, he'd passed the time until the morning hours by staying on Arkham's grounds, keeping a watch on the Joker. That had been uneventful, amazingly, as the Joker had fallen asleep sometime between being locked up and the time it had taken Batman to get outside. He awoke eventually, when the orderlies came to put him in the inmate uniform, and raised such a fit when they tried to remove his makeup that he'd had to be sedated. Heavily.

Two hours and enough drugs to pacify a whale later, it became clear that the Joker wasn't going anywhere, for the moment. He'd gotten home, changed clothes, and made his way to Wayne Enterprises, where he asked Lucius to contact whoever was running the madhouse and give them as much money as they could possibly use to fortify their defenses against breakouts. He doubted Arkham could ever be Joker-proofed, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try. After that, he'd just managed to get home, and got about five feet inside before he collapsed. Come to think of it, he didn't think he'd slept the day before last either. Maybe this _was_ unhealthy.

"It would seem," Alfred said, from somewhere above him, "that Batman has limits after all."

He didn't bother to answer that. They both knew the butler was right, though he'd never bring himself to say it. He couldn't afford to give into those limits. Not until Gotham no longer needed him. He found his thoughts moving to Jonathan Crane, to the promise he'd made last night. In retrospect, he had no idea what he'd been thinking. And reflecting on the retrospection, he realized his incredulity was not based on the fact that he'd made a promise to a villain, but rather that he had no idea how he was going to keep it.

"Alfred, do you ever get the feeling you've gone completely insane?"

* * *

_I am _not _insane._ God, how he'd love to take that clipboard she was writing on and break it over her head. He could hardly remember the remark she'd made, though it had only been a second or so again; all Leland's platitudes tended to run together over time. But he caught the tone very well; that infuriating, soothing tone that said 'I'm humoring a crazy person.' If she did it again, he might not be able to hold back.

"You don't feel safe here, do you?" Ah, there it was; that stupid, placating tone. The urge to break things was becoming almost unbearable.

"Would you? This may have escaped your notice, but Arkham doesn't have the best track record for containing him."

She stopped tapping her fingers, which he knew meant he annoyed her. Though he wasn't sure if it was by answering with another question, or for insulting her. "Jonathan, I promise that we're doing everything we can to prevent another breakout."

How he managed to avoid rolling his eyes at that, he wasn't quite sure.

"And we've just received, as of this morning, a substantial amount of money from Wayne Enterprises to improve security on the facilities. There are guards positioned outside the Joker's cell, twenty-four hours a day, and they are trained to subdue violent patients. You've got nothing to worry about, dear."

_Right. Nothing to worry about. _And to think that _he _was meant to be the unstable one here. He wondered if she actually believed that, or if it was a lie she told herself in order to work up the courage to go to work each morning. It could be either, though it was hard to believe any doctor could be stupid enough to believe the first. But then, she'd never been the Joker's psychiatrist. "Uh-huh."

She resumed the tapping, eyes still on him, look disgustingly sympathetic. "Are you worried about more than the Joker?"

"What?"

"Batman. When he was here last night. Did he frighten you?"

_Not frighten, so much as tie up._ All right, so he'd been horrified. He wasn't going to admit that to her. He thought of his moment of weakness the night before, and looked down so she wouldn't see him blush. He'd begged the Batman—_begged_, like a dog—to protect him, and he couldn't see himself living that down anytime in the next thousand years. And when the Batman agreed, much as it hurt to admit, even to himself, he'd actually felt the briefest second of _relief. _As if he'd trusted him.

* * *

"And now he's trusting me to protect him," Bruce finished, pulling himself up. "All told, not one of my better moves."

He could tell Alfred disapproved, though he didn't say so. The man hardly ever outright argued Bruce's decisions, but he knew if Alfred was the one wearing the mask, things would be done differently. He respected Bruce's refusal to kill, but Bruce hadn't forgotten that Alfred stopped bandits by burning the forests down. "I would have to agree there, Master Wayne."

He considered standing, but didn't feel up to it yet. He had no idea how to explain _why _he'd said yes, because he wasn't sure why he'd said it to begin with. Yes, he believed that criminals deserved the same protection as everyone else, and just because a person had broken the law, they weren't necessarily beyond redemption. After all, he'd been prepared to shoot Joe Chill, and the prisoners on the ferry hadn't blown up the other boat.

Still. This was the Scarecrow. The super criminals, as they were called, were of a different mantle than anyone else who broke the law. Jonathan Crane, to his knowledge, had never felt remorse or tried to repent for his former transgressions. He was willing to torture in the name of research, to kill for seemingly nothing more than his own amusement. Did someone like that deserve the Batman's word of protection?

But…just because he'd never made the effort to change didn't mean he couldn't. And even if he didn't—and Bruce doubted he ever could—Batman was sworn to Gotham City. _All _of Gotham City, even the parts of it that wore burlap sacks and rode around on a horse in a straitjacket. Besides, making sure the Joker didn't break out again meant more than protecting the Scarecrow. If anyone was incurable, it was definitely the Joker. Ensuring his continued imprisonment would save countless lives. The fact that keeping the clown locked up also meant keeping his promise was killing two birds with one stone, nothing more.

It had to be, because he couldn't afford to feel sympathy for someone who would as soon kill him as look at him. He'd underestimated the Scarecrow before, let his pity get in the way of his judgment, and he had scars to remind him never to make that mistake again.

He tried standing, and realized his legs weren't going to cooperate. With a shake of his head and a slight smile, he looked up at Alfred. "Mind helping me to my room?"

* * *

"You want to go back to your room?" Leland was trying to keep the disappointment from her voice, Jonathan could tell. She always sounded that way at the end of a session, as though she was honestly expecting him to have a breakdown in her office one of these days, and pour his heart out to her. _Yeah, don't hold your breath._

"Pl—" No, he couldn't bring himself to say it, even if it would get him out of here ten minutes early. "It's just…talking still takes a lot out of me." He looked down as himself, still unnaturally thin, rolling the hems of his sleeves between his fingers, to make sure the scars were covered. Drawing attention to his emaciated form for sympathy was one thing. Allowing her to stare at the cuts; he could no more do that than he could say 'please.' It would be giving up too much, and after the weeks of mad ranting, he had nothing left to give. "And I just got back to my room this morning, and it makes me feel…secure."

That, actually, he'd been surprised to find was true when he moved back in that morning. It disgusted him; Arkham was a _prison_, after all, a place where people could be condescending toward him and label him 'insane' because his worldview clashed with their own, and he should absolutely not feel at home here. Yet he couldn't deny the small comfort of sitting in his cell again, where things were at least familiar. Not that it made his circumstances any better, but it did give them a solid ground to occur on. It made no sense, but sitting there, he'd felt almost safe.

He may have to leave Gotham, when he broke out. He didn't want to; he'd built his whole life here. But he couldn't risk growing fond of this place, it could prove to be a disadvantage.

He looked back up, eyes wide and harmless as he could make them. "I…would that be all right?"

"Of course." Leland's disappointment was masked, near instantaneously, and she stood, placing his file on her desk. "That's fine, Jonathan, whatever makes you more comfortable."

"Thank you." He stood as well, stepping back when she attempted to take his hand. Because he allowed some of the other patients to touch him, it seemed everyone assumed they could. It really pissed him off. Should he decide to stay in Gotham, once this mess was over, he might have to pay her a visit and show her exactly what he thought about her performance as his therapist.

"If you're feeling up to it," she said, as they walked, "and you want to talk to me about anything, before your next session, just let me know, all right? I'd be happy to hear anything you have to say."

"All right." He was zoning her out again, barely hearing the words as he mind focused on methods of escape. It wasn't going to be easy, not if security was being tightened, and especially not if the Batman was keeping his promise. But surely he wasn't. If he was watching the Joker at all, it'd be out of his own interests, not Jonathan's. And Jonathan doubted he would be watching. The Joker broke out all the time, and the Batman had never interfered before.

No, the promise between them would be broken. More than likely, it was broken already. It was only to be expected. It was the way of the world, every man for himself, and he'd be a fool to think things would be any different.

So then why did he felt let down, when he thought about it?

* * *

AN: The title refers to the trope "Two Scenes, One Dialogue," in which lines from one person's conversation in one scene carry over to a different discussion in another scene.

Jonathan's mention about feeling secure in Arkham came from the Scarecrow in Neil Gaiman's _Sandman _series, who mentions that he regards Arkham as the only place he really feels at home and suggests that the other villains feel the same way.


	10. Games

AN: Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Generally, stays at Arkham weren't so bad. Roof over the head, a bed to sleep in—though it wasn't all that comfortable—and a variety of food, even everything did taste like vomit. And on Tuesdays there was Art Therapy, where he was allowed to draw anything he wanted in crayons or markers or even paint, if he hadn't been exhibiting Inappropriate Behavior, and no one could yell at him for the pictures he made, because it was self-expression. Sure, there were the nightly assaults from the guards, but those had stopped, remarkably, what with the new orderlies outside the door twenty-four seven thing. It hadn't hurt anyway, back when it did happen.

And Arkham was never short of staff and patients to play with until they broke.

This week, though, had crept past with all the speed of a zombie. A zombie whose legs had rotted off. Joker was _bored_. And he hated boredom. Almost as much as being made light of, or being ignored, or that all that stupid plastic packaging companies insisted on putting around their products, the kind that took three hours and several chainsaws to get off. Honestly. What idiot decided twist-tying—_knotting_—something to a plastic plate _welded _onto the box it came in was a good idea? If he ran the world, bubble wrap would be the only allowed type of packing.

Well, and cardboard boxes. Those were fun. And good for hiding weapons or bodies in, in a pinch.

He didn't have to be bored, he knew; he could make things very interesting if he tried. But with the increased security, it would take planning. It wasn't as easy as getting around the automatic lock and taking off down the hall anymore. Now that there were guards outside, they'd have to be either subdued or killed. And that wasn't difficult—entertaining, actually—but someone was sure to take note, so he'd only be able to do it once before security was tightened. That, or break out.

He really didn't want to break out just yet though. The idea had been to make a few more visits to Jonny's room, really shake him up, before he got to methods of vengeance. He supposed he could break out and sneak in again to bother him, but he was just settling back in. Besides, tomorrow was Italian night. The night with food that didn't _entirely _make him want to puke out his digestive tract. Just mostly. And the breadsticks were good.

He'd tried deactivating the door's security system last night, via a piece of metal pulled out of his mattress. The doctors seemed to think as long as they took away the bed frame, nothing else could be used as a weapon. To his surprise, the latest change in the system was actually competent. Not that he couldn't break through it if he tried, but it would take effort. He hadn't felt like expending effort that night, and upon awaking, he realized he'd misplaced the metal.

Where, he wasn't quite sure, but it was nowhere to be found. Neither was the hole he'd torn into the mattress to get it out. As if it had been sewn shut. Which made no sense; no doctor had confronted him about it, and last he checked, he didn't make needles and do home repair in his sleep. Either he'd hallucinated getting the spring in the first place—which couldn't be it, given that he was the very picture of sanity—or someone was in his room when he shouldn't have been.

He frowned, mulling it over. Bats had better not have been in here without saying hello. Especially when he didn't have his face on. That was just rude.

Definitely not Jonny. If that little coward had gotten out of his cell, he would have hightailed it out of town like the Energizer Bunny on crack. So…predictable. Jonny might have more vision than the average criminal, but his methods were about as interesting as watching blood dry. Except for maybe when he was torturing people, but he made that so scientific that it was almost boring too.

He wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to do with Jonny-boy when messing around with the little scarecrow got boring, but he'd make it interesting. An interesting revenge was more than Jonny deserved, certainly, he might have been fun to have around, and given nice—if inexperienced—head, but disrespecting Joker in front of Batsy was not on. Not at all. He'd better appreciate it, whatever the Joker decided to do. And there were so many options, each as fun as the last.

He could offer to blow Crane, return the favor as it were, with a razor hidden in his mouth. Jonny'd have to be tied down for that one. He could play doctor, and help treat his friend's hydrophobia with Chinese water torture. He could take a leaf out of Harvey's book, and flip a two-headed—unscarred—coin, telling Jonny he'd get beaten if it came up heads. They could finger paint, though using Jonny's blood wouldn't offer too wide a range of colors. And the fluid in his eyes would be clear, so there'd be no point in using that.

He wasn't sure he wanted to mess with Jonny's eyes anyway. They were gorgeous, and had been part of the reason Joker had started playing with him to begin with. That, and he was fun to mess with. Jonny's eyes were almost unnaturally blue; looking at them was like seeing blue for the first time, like being Dorothy Gale and stepping out of her house and into Technicolor. _Definitely not in Kansas anymore. _Alternately, they reminded him of a blue raspberry slushie, though lighter. A shade that one did most definitely not see often in nature. Jonny's eyes made him think of Saint Lucia.

But they might make paintings together. He liked Art Therapy, a lot, even when he wasn't allowed near the paints. Earlier this week a badly mangled, mostly broken pack of one hundred and twenty Crayolas had sufficed to make a very lovely picture he entitled 'Best Friends Forever.' It had depicted a scarecrow, wearing clothing with the pattern of the nine of spades being set aflame by a clown wearing a crown as a bat laughed in the background. He'd tried asking the therapist to deliver it to Jonny, but she'd said no. It was hanging on his wall now.

Lights from the road shone through the window, casting patterns on the wall over his door. He stared at the door, sucking on his scars as he shook his head in distaste. It couldn't hold him, not if he really wanted out, but the fact that he had to put energy into it pissed him off. Well, no matter. The room might have been soundproofed, but he still got information in other ways. Other ways being the young, inexperienced nurse from out of Gotham who brought his morning meds. The guards knew what they were doing, for once, but no one had bothered to think about the nurses. He assumed they'd sent someone new to the city to deal with him because she may not be as afraid. Whatever the reason, like most things, it worked to his advantage.

He knew who was behind the changes in security. Wayne Enterprises, as always, though this was the first time it had a noticeable effect. Well, maybe when he was finished dealing with Jonny he'd track down this Bruce Wayne. Maybe play some fun games with him and show him what happened to those who tried to contain him. Brucey's parents were dead, weren't they? They could have some fun at Mommy and Daddy's graves. Or not, the playboy idiot didn't seem worth too much effort. Joker hadn't even seen him at his last party, doubtless off cowering somewhere. _Great host._

He looked away from the door. It annoyed him; if it could speak he imagined it would be stern and old and no fun at all. Not even a dry sense of humor. Joker turned his attention back to the lights on the wall. It was Lights Out now, not that he slept much during Lights Out. He thought some of the pills they had him on were meant to knock him out, but given that he rarely swallowed the stuff, the Sandman didn't pay him visits until he was good and ready. The Joker didn't like pills. They looked like candy, but as those public service announcements warned, they really weren't.

The headlights from the streets danced across the wall like sunlight on a rapidly-flowing river. It made him long for the docks, or just to be outside, but he didn't turn away from the sight. It was relaxing despite, or maybe because of, the associations. Like sunlight on a river, but it was dark. So possibly more like a candle on the water.

Humming, he found himself thinking of Obon, the Japanese festival of the dead. It lasted three days, and on the third, family members would float a lantern down the river, one that bore the names of their deceased loved ones. He wondered if he'd make a Jonny lantern and send it floating off to sea. He wondered if Jonny would appreciate it. Probably not, given his aversion to water. He wondered if he was going to kill Jonny at all.

On one hand, the scarecrow had pissed him off. Badly. Whatever happened, he was not getting off lightly. But killing him might be too easy. It could be more fun to see how much further over the edge he could push him. The kid was obviously fucked up, Joker still giggling in shocked amusement every time he thought of his friend insisting that Joker wasn't there, but he was still holding on. He was in the abyss, but he was holding on. Joker was tempted to break his hold, see what would happen when Jonny fell the rest of the way.

Or he could just stab him. He didn't make plans. He wasn't a schemer, he was just a dog about to catch a car. And he didn't know what he'd do once he had it, but he knew it would be fun. Lots of fun. After all, Obon didn't mourn the dead. It celebrated their lives. If he was going to kill Jonny, he might as well give him a hell of a sendoff. Too bad his friend was unlikely to see it from that point of view. Jonny would get caught up in the pain and all. Wimp.

From outside his cell there was shouting. It was supposed to be soundproof, and usually it was, but not when people were yelling. It wasn't as soundproof in the dark anyway. Hearing got better when one couldn't see as well. Maybe he'd blind Jonny and then have some fun with loud noises. He'd read once that hearing a song loudly enough for long enough would drive a normal person crazy, and it would be so entertaining to see what would happen to someone with a heightened sense of hearing. What song, though?

The shouting was still going on. He considered yelling something about needing his beauty sleep, or how this was disrupting his peaceful state of mind, but decided against it. Exhibiting Appropriate Behavior, making everyone feel relaxed around him was a key part of what little plan he had made. And anyway, this could be interesting. He stopped, cocked his head toward the door, listening.

_Wait_—had someone just said 'Scarecrow'? They had, they definitely had. And he was in a separate ward now, so they shouldn't be talking about him unless he'd died, or fallen horribly ill, or—did he just hear 'escaped'? He had better not have heard escaped, if he'd heard escaped, people would die, and it wouldn't be—there it was again. They _had_ said escaped.

Well, this was not happy-making. Not one bit. Stupid little bitch. What the hell made Jonathan think he could leave before the Joker had had his fun? And breaking out would draw the Batman's attention again, which, now that he thought about it, was probably _exactly _what that whore intended. Stealing his attention, again, making it all about him. That little bastard. He'd show him what happened to people who crossed him.

That's it, Jonathan was dead. So dead he might as well lie down in a coffin right now. Only Joker highly doubted there would be enough of the Scarecrow left to fill a coffin, once he was through. _Hope you're ready to play, Jonny. 'Cause I sure as hell am._

* * *

AN: Saint Lucia, also known as Saint Lucy, is the patron saint of light and blindness. She had her eyes gouged out.

Nine of spades: The worst card of all, supposedly, when using a regular card deck for tarot. Represents misery and defeat.

The game Joker thinks of playing, beating Jonathan if the two-headed coins comes up heads, is taken from the comics. Harvey Dent's father would play that game with him.

Shorter chapter, and also my first time writing from Joker's point of view, which I'm intensely nervous about. Jon's breakout was rather abrupt, the next chapter will detail his experiences over the week and how he got out.


	11. Failure

AN: So I watched _Batman Forever _for the first time today, and I have no idea what to think about it. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either, and I felt most everybody's character was totally wasted. I was glad they kept Eddie as a redhead, but the only time I didn't hate his hairstyle in the film, it was brown. I suppose it doesn't help that I'm not much of a Robin fan. I'd probably have liked it quite a lot if I'd seen it as a little girl. Maybe.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Jonathan fought the urge to vomit again and forced himself to eat slower.

The thing about being malnourished was that the body got used to being without food. Not that it learned to run without nutrients, obviously, that was impossible. But after a time the hunger went from a sharp pain to a dull ache, to a barely-there nuisance. If it went on long enough, the very act of reintroducing food could be rejected by the body initially, no matter how bad the need for substance was.

That was part of the reason why anorexics had such a time recovering. Mostly it was a psychological problem, tying into distorted body image and the control issue. But many mental hospitals set an amount of food the anorexia patients needed to eat per day and forced them to fill that quota, no matter how badly their bodies wanted to reject the food. It was hard, though the patients usually never admitted such. Need for power and all. Still, it was plain on their faces.

He wondered if his disgust was plain on his face, as he took the smallest bite possible of the sandwich in his hand, pacing around the yard. He was trying to use looking around as a distraction, to help ignore the fact that he really did not want to eat. So far it wasn't working. It didn't help that he almost never ate at this time of day anyway. He'd eaten earlier, but his body had rejected it. Perhaps due to the fact that it was the first time he'd eaten solid food in a while. Whatever the reason, he wasn't in the mood for another vomiting fit, and was thus going as slowly as possible.

Generally, he was not a fan of wide open spaces, but today he was willing to make an exception. He was outside Gotham's city limits now. Not much, but enough that the houses had yards around them. Substantial ones, more than the foot or so of grass surrounding buildings in the city. It was good for pacing, which was good for focus, something he needed at the moment. This time he'd had the foresight to get the pills before leaving Arkham, so he was in no danger of losing it again, but he'd made little plan for what he'd do once he got out. The process of breaking out had been intricate enough to require most of his attention during the past week, but now figuring out where to go from here took precedent.

The process of getting out had been rather involved this time, but he wouldn't have called it difficult. Security had been upgraded, and no doubt breaking through the door would have been a challenge, had he tried that. He hadn't needed to. Physically, he hadn't had to make any effort at all, not really. Sitting by the door and taking a weapon, that had been about it. The lovely thing about Arkham was that the employees seemed to think as long as a patient posed no physical threat, they were no danger at all.

Which couldn't be further from the truth. He was living proof of that.

On the first night back in his own cell, he'd merely pushed open the tray slot on his door and timidly asked the guard on duty if he could speak to him. If the man had refused, that would have been it. The plan would have failed right there.

But it hadn't failed. He'd walked over, after a moment's hesitation, and asked Crane what he wanted.

"Nothing in particular. I'm sorry to be bothering you; I couldn't sleep, and I thought talking for a minute might help. Unless I'm keeping you from your job, Mister…" he paused. "It's Pembry, isn't it? Matthew Pembry?"

"Michael."

"Ah. Sorry." He'd known it was Michael, actually. The man hadn't been working here when he was the administrator, but listening to the conversation as the he took duty from the last guard, he'd learned the name. Saying it incorrectly, however, had put them on a first name basis, which would have been unlikely had he only asked the name. "I'm Jonathan."

"I know."

"Am I bothering you? You can end the conversation if I'm keeping you from anything. I won't be offended."

"You might be if anything was going on, but you're not. Don't worry about it."

"Thanks." He let relief be heard in his voice, fighting the urge to smile. Amusement might come across in his tone. Just because he couldn't be seen didn't mean it was time to start taking chances. "I don't sleep well, you see. I've always been more of a night person. Are you that way?"

"If I wasn't, I'd have been a fool to take this shift. Do the guards usually talk to you?"

"I think they're afraid of me," he said, in the smallest voice he could use while still being audible. "Usually I pace around my room in hopes of tiring myself out."

"For how long?"

Did he detect a hint of pity, or was that wishful thinking? "I'm not entirely sure. There's no clock in here, but my estimate would be a few hours, on average. Sometimes longer."

"And you're not on sleeping pills?" Yes, it was pity. Barely there, but he'd take what he could get.

"I don't know what I'm on. If I am, I guess I'm immune to the effects. You're new here?"

"What?"

"I don't remember you from last time I was here. And when you asked if the guards usually talked to me, it sounded like something you would ask if you hadn't been around for that long. Are you new?"

"As of three weeks ago."

"Ah. I didn't come back until last week."

"I know."

"You're not from Gotham, are you? You don't sound like it."

"How do you mean?"

"Everyone around here sounds rather depressed most of the time. Not that I can blame them, Gotham's not a very bright place to live. Arkham especially. You don't, though. Where are you from?"

"Connecticut. I'm not technically a Gothamite now, either. Living outside the city limits."

"Good choice. It's cleaner there." Less chance of getting mugged, too. "What brings you here? Arkham doesn't strike me as that enticing of a job prospect."

"The economy. I needed a job and took what I could get."

"And that was here." He made a sympathetic tsking sound. "Sorry."

"Don't be. You don't control the state of the country."

_Obviously. _He made himself yawn, despite feeling wide awake as ever. It wasn't best to go pushing too far, not on the first night. "Thank you, Michael. This conversation was inordinately helpful."

"Don't mention it."

The second night, when he asked again, there was no hesitation on Michael Pembry's behalf. He almost giggled at that, though thankfully he was able to stop himself. If he hadn't, everything would have been over. "This is your third week here, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"About half the new employees leave after the first day. You must be good."

A laugh. "Thanks, but not really. I'm just lucky enough to have had a fairly uneventful first few weeks."

"Uneventful? Arkham? Things must really have changed since I left. This place is never uneventful. You're telling me you haven't been attacked by patients wielding broken sporks or anything?"

"Well, the first week a patient I was escorting managed to break free for long enough to concuss some poor bastard. I was walking too closely behind the guy, and he took the opportunity to bring his foot back and nail me in the balls."

"_Ow._" He paused. "But things turned out all right?"

"I was reprimanded, but yeah. I think I was angrier with myself than they were with me. Let something like that happen, and it feels like a personal failure, you know?"

"Don't be silly. You couldn't have predicted it was going to happen. You can't blame it on yourself." Of course, that was the reason guards were trained not to get too close to their charges unless it was absolutely necessary, but he wasn't about to say that.

"I know. It's just knowing and practicing what you know are two different things, right?"

"Yes. If you don't mind my asking, why did you become a security guard? You seem too…not to be insulting…but too smart to end up in a place like this."

He laughed again. "Seriously?"

"Yes. Most guards aren't the brightest crayons in the box. Hence why Arkham keeps needing new ones."

"No, no, I get that, I meant the part where you called _me _smart. Anyway, it's not like I grew up dreaming of becoming a guard. Life just happened, I guess."

"What did you want to be?"

A pause. "A doctor."

"What kind?"

"Pediatrician."

He considered it. "You'd be good at it. You're nice."

"Thanks. But it didn't happen, obviously."

"Can I ask why, or is that prying?"

"Not really. Lack of money and grades, mostly."

"And you ended up here. God, I'm sorry. I hope you have some fantastic girlfriend to come home to or something, to make up for working in this hellhole every night."

"Nah, I'm single at the moment."

Something about the way he said it made Crane sit up a little straighter. "Did you just have a break up?"

"You…could say that. I divorced a few months ago."

"Oh. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"It's fine. You didn't know."

The conversation went on for some time after that, but nothing worth mentioning. He had a piece of personal information now, information with strong emotion attached. And that would be immensely helpful.

On the third night, he hadn't even needed to ask. That night's conversation didn't give him anything new to work with, but the fact that the man was willingly seeking conversation with him was a good sign if ever there was one.

The fourth night was Michael Pembry's night off. The fifth night, conversation resumed.

"So, where did you work before you came here?"

"A hospital in Connecticut."

"An institution?"

"No, just a regular hospital."

Crane thought back to the mention of the economy when they'd spoken on the first night. "Did they cut down on staff or something? Lay you off?"

"No, I was fired." A pause. "Missed too many days."

"Were you terribly ill?"

"_I _wasn't. My wi—my ex was sick for a long time, and my boss wasn't exactly understanding about the situation."

"Can I ask what—"

"She had an ectopic pregnancy. You know what that is?"

"Yes."

"Yeah. Well, it caused severe bleeding, which turned into an infection, and then infertility." There was sadness in his voice, with a touch of bitterness. "She…didn't take the news well. That was about the time our marriage started to go downhill."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Not your fault."

The sixth day.

"Jonathan?"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing? Your voice keeps getting farther away and then coming back."

"Oh. Sorry, I was pacing. I didn't get much sleep last night, so I've been trying to tire myself out all day. Do you want me to stop?"

"No, go ahead if it's helping you. Is it working?"

"Not particularly. I don't know if it's the size of the room or what, but no matter how much I go around it, it doesn't feel like I've gone anywhere at all. Ah well. Maybe the one thousand four hundred and eighty-sixth time will get it to work."

"You've been keeping count?"

"Yes. One thousand four hundred and eighty-seven now."

There was a stretch of silence, then, hesitantly: "Would it work better if you could do it up and down the hall?"

"I'm sorry?"

"If I let you out of the cell. Would that help?"

"But…" He tried to sound just the perfect mix of hopeful and cautious. "But you can't do that. I can't. I'd get you in trouble."

"I'd be right there to supervise you. Believe me, I've learned not to stand too close to the patients. Do you think it would help?"

"I…I guess so. But, I don't want to cause a problem for you."

"It'll be fine. Don't worry."

The door opened.

"We're the same height," Jonathan said, surprised. "You looked taller through the window."

"Probably because you're usually bent down by the tray slot. Come on."

"Michael?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

The seventh day.

"Michael? Could you do me a favor?"

"What do you need?"

"Could you open the door to my cell again?"

"Can't sleep."

"No."

It opened. A minute passed.

"Are you coming out?"

"In a minute. Could I have your weapon?"

"_What_?"

"And your uniform? I'll be needing them to get out."

"What are you _talking _about?"

"I'm breaking out. I thought that was obvious."

"You can't be serious."

"I am serious. _Dead _serious. And look, if I don't get out of here soon, I'll be just plain _dead_. So hand over the gun."

"_No_."

"Oh, come on. You let me out of my cell yesterday. How is this any different?"

"Jonathan, you can't honestly think that I'm going to let you leave."

"Do you want to know what I honestly think? I honestly think that you will. And do you want to know why? Because it would be failing at your job to do so. And that's what you're good at, isn't it? Failing at things."

"What?"

If Crane was the least bit fazed by the gun pointed at him, he didn't show it. "Let me see, you failed at attaining your desired profession, because you didn't have the money, I believe? Though, if you wanted it badly enough, that shouldn't have been an obstacle. So really, it was a lack of motivation. You failed to keep your last job, much like you failed to do this one properly. And you failed your wife."

"I—she—"

"She needed support in some way that you clearly didn't provide. Becoming sterile is one of the biggest emotional blows that can be dealt to a person, especially after a miscarriage. I worked with trauma victims, in the past. Whatever you did, in all that time you spent around her, that you lost your job for…it clearly wasn't enough. You failed her when she needed you the most."

"It—it wasn't like that, she—"

"Sure it wasn't. Face it, the only thing you haven't failed at in your life is being a disappointment. And this friendship, so far. But you will fail at it, if you don't give me what I want and get out of my way."

"I _can't_."

"Yes, you can." His expression softened, slightly. "Look, I'm sorry about this. I honestly am. But the Joker will _kill _me if I don't get out of Gotham. And you'll forgive me if I prefer keeping my life more than I'm concerned about your job, I'm sure. Give me the gun."

He hadn't convinced him, but he had caused him to hesitate, and that was all he needed to dive forward, grab the gun from his hand, and slam him upside the head with it. Seemed he hadn't learned his lesson about keeping his distance after all.

"I really am sorry."

Upon taking Michael's clothes and wallet, leaving had been ridiculous easy. He'd found the car in the parking lot with little difficulty—the man had mentioned the model and make of it on the third night—and promptly got the hell out of there.

He'd gone in the opposite direction of Michael Pembry's home, as the police would definitely be searching there once his breakout was discovered, and hadn't stopped until the car ran out of gas, right outside the city limits. He'd found an empty house and invited himself in, raiding the refrigerator for food and coming across a pistol in the master bedroom, which was loaded. He had it with him now, in his back pocket.

After covering any tracks he may have left—he'd walked a few miles away from the car and was hoping it would be viewed as a random robbery—he was off again. He'd been traveling through backyards, mostly, slower going than one would expect. It was important to avoid being right in front of windows, after all, and he had to change direction often, to avoid leaving too obvious of a trail. The plan was to get a good length away from where he'd ditched the car, take another, and then head back to Gotham to get a few things he'd need before leaving for good. He still had no idea where he was going after that.

He had underestimated, however, the amount of time it would take to get a substantial distance away from where he'd left the car. Malnutrition made even walking hard, and what felt about a thousand years later, he'd likely gone only a few miles. He was about to collapse from exhaustion when he spotted the barn.

He had no idea why there was a barn here; the yards had gotten larger, but still nowhere near the size of a farm. Perhaps this neighborhood used to be farmland and was only recently rebuilt. Whatever, it made a good hiding place and he wasn't going to question it. He got three steps inside, ascertained it was empty, and collapsed on the nearest pile of hay. He lay staring up at the ceiling for God only knows how long, before spotting the scythe.

Much like the hay in the barn, he had no idea why there was a scythe there. It was old, spotted with rust, most likely just a decoration. He stood and took it anyway, swinging it experimentally before he sat back down, closing his eyes as he reclined. He knew how to use one, and if things got bad enough, he could try fighting with it. Besides, he liked scythes. They were nicely intimidating.

He also liked hay, much as he was loathe to admit it. He used to hide in it all the time, back in Georgia, when things were unbearable. And try as he might to block out all memories of his life there, he couldn't deny the comfort it held. It made him feel safe, hidden, though he was anything but.

And he found out just how visible he was, when he opened his eyes again to find the Batman standing over him.

_Jesus Christ. How does he _do _that?_ Not that that mattered now, so much as getting the hell out in one piece did.

* * *

AN: For some reason I can see Crane saying such outlandish things like "I'm breaking you, give me your gun" in a normal tone of voice very easily.

Pembry is named after Officer Pembry from _The Silence of the Lambs, _one of the guards Hannibal Lecter killed when breaking out. The act of making a speech about why a person sucks to break his spirit, based on information he gave you in casual conversation, is known as a 'Hannibal Lecture,' tropewise. This chapter was mostly dialogue, sorry if that annoyed you, but I thought it fit with the 'power of words' theme going on through the week.

The idea of Jonathan Crane finding a scythe in a barn came from the always awesome GreyLiliy. Thanks for the idea!


	12. Plans

AN: So does anyone else watch The Joker Blogs on Youtube? If you haven't seen them, you should check them out. It's someone who does one of the better Ledger impressions I've seen recording the Joker's therapy sessions, and it's fantastic. The third is my favorite, though the fourth is also incredible and the Christmas special is about the funniest thing I've ever seen. It's very well done (loved the reference to Lyle Bolton in the fourth) and the people involved are talented and have clearly put effort into it, so I'm recommending it here.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

It occurred to Jonathan that he was almost certainly about to be badly hurt, and then taken back to Arkham, where he would be killed. There was no question about that. Really, he should be expending all his energy on getting away, instead of staring up, gaping. But whether it was shock or exhaustion or something else, he remained sitting, unmoving except to ask, "How the hell do you _do _that?"

The Batman didn't say anything.

He tightened his grip on the scythe and continued. "I mean, honestly. I've been out for what, twelve hours at the most? Without the police on my trail, I might add. Have you been following me since I left and just now decided to do something about it, or are you telepathic?"

Crane found himself thinking of those microchips people installed in their pets, to track them down when they were missing. That could be done to humans as well, couldn't it? The idea that he'd been tagged was paranoid, beyond ridiculous, but then, dressing up like a bat was equally ludicrous. Fantastic. Now he felt the urge to go digging into his skin, hunting for hidden tracking devices. That were probably bat-shaped, if they existed. God knew the man made everything else he had shaped like a bat.

Batman had yet to respond. "Well?"

"You left the door open." He tilted his head toward the open doorway, light filtering in.

Ah. Well, crap. "How did you know I was here to begin with?"

"Police scanner."

"What?"

"Someone took note of you walking through her yard, and called the police to report a disturbance. The description matched you."

Oh. Damn, and he thought he'd so well evaded being detected. "Why aren't the police here, then?"

"They've been busy."

He raised a brow. "With what?"

The Batman did not explain. That indicated it was something bad. Lovely. Well, as long as it didn't affect him, he couldn't care less. Though, this refusal to tell him hinted that it would affect him…Crane felt a new wave of apprehension, and sat up straighter. Batman took a step forward in response, and Crane raised the scythe. "Don't."

He stopped. "You're going to fight me with that?"

"No." He took one hand off the scythe, reached back, pulled out the gun. "This, though? I very well might."

* * *

_Dear Nigma,_

_By the time you read this, I'll be gone._

It was Edward's third time reading through the note, and that line still made him shake his head. Talk about clichés. For someone so brilliant, Jonathan Crane appeared to have learned the art of writing goodbye notes from bad suspense movies.

Still, at least he'd left a note this time. In a way, Edward supposed this was a good sign, as Jonathan had recognized his friends would be concerned for them. Which meant he regarded them as friends, as much as one so clueless and narcissistic could. Which was a step forward, though it did nothing to counteract the mile or so he'd moved back by leaving again.

Of course, Edward couldn't really begrudge him for that. If he'd enraged the Joker, he'd want to get the hell out of Dodge too.

_I know that you're of the opinion that I'd be better off staying here, but I'm of the opinion that it would be better if I was not horribly killed. I doubt that you would reveal my location or future plans if interrogated, but this note might be intercepted before you wake up and read it, so I'm not going to discuss them here, sorry._

Not that anyone would have been _able _to figure out his location, even if he had written it down. Jonathan's handwriting was absurdly small, and the fact that he'd been writing with a blunt crayon and a shaking hand when he composed the note didn't help in the least. That was most of the reason Edward had read this three times now, only on the second, and with a lot of careful staring, did the marks on the paper resemble anything like words. It had been clearer toward the beginning, but he must have sped up or something, because the end was all but illegible.

_I will say that if my escape is successful, it's unlikely we will ever cross paths again. I want to apologize for that as well, and let you know that I greatly appreciate the way you helped me when my sanity was less than stable._

As if it was stable now.

_Beyond that, you've always been kind to me, and are one of the few people I can be around for prolonged periods without wishing I had fear toxin on hand. Even when the activities spent together were less than pleasant—group therapy, for instance, and I'll never forgive you for all those soap operas—I consider you to be a friend, and I know you feel the same._

Which he wouldn't have known, Edward reflected, if he hadn't been told. Honestly, Jonathan was still clueless enough about human interaction to begin letters with the recipient's last name. Who did that?

_I hope you won't be upset that I've gone, but I'm sure Isley will._

Well, yes. Upset being an understatement. 'Hunting Jonathan down and killing him,' that was more accurate.

_I know that you're close, so I hope you'll be able to reassure her that I didn't mean to hurt her. Only that my survival is not something I want to take risks with. Thank you for all you've done for me, and though it's probably won't happen, I hope we meet again._

_Jonathan_

The "J" in the last line had clearly been drawn over something else, what Edward guessed was the start of a closing. He couldn't ascertain if it was a "Y" or a "L" or what, however. He leaned back, sighed. _Jonathan, of all the geniuses I know, you've got to be the stupidest. _He was going to get caught. And then he'd be back in the same position, only likely with more injuries than before. Which could well kill him.

The door to his cell flew open and he bolted up, to find Pamela and Jervis Tetch standing there. "The hell?"

"Don't just sit there gaping, Eddie." Pam's eyes were burning almost as fiercely as her hair. "You got a letter too, I take it?"

"Yes, I…" he trailed off, noting the pass key in Jervis's hand. "How did you get that?"

Jervis opened his mouth to explain and was abruptly cut off by Pam, who silenced him by pulling the hat from his head. Jervis looked as though he might faint.

"We haven't got time to waste translating Lewis Carroll," she snapped. "We need to get going."

He snatched the hat back and shoved it on, color rushing back to his face. "If you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's _him_."

"Tetch, what did I just say?"

Lost as ever, Edward stood up. "Here's an idea, let's suppose I've got no idea what's going on."

"For God's sake , Eddie, are you the Riddler or not? You should have figured it out the second I opened the door."

"Excuse me if I haven't had much time to think about it." He stopped, considered. She'd mentioned the letter…oh, of course. "We're hunting down Jonathan?"

"Obviously." She crossed the room, grabbed his wrist, pulled him into the hall. Had he not followed willingly, he imagined it would have been painful. It was still slightly painful now. When Pam wanted something, she got it. If their relationship had taught him anything, it was that.

"What are we going to do once we find him?" Pam still had hold of him, and was running down the hall, dragging him behind her.

"Well, I'm going to break his neck, so he won't be able to run off anymore. After that, I'm not sure."

"Pam, you can't kill him."

"After such kindness, that would be a dismal thing to do!"

"_Shut up_, Tetch. And I'm not going to kill him, just paralyze him a little."

"That's better how, exactly?"

"It—" she faltered. "Well, for him it isn't. But it'll make me happier."

"Fantastic." Edward shook his head, as Jervis swiped the pass key through another door, this one leading outside. "Now, really, how did you get that?"

"You know how the machines in the rec room have stopped working lately?" Isley asked, stepping outside. The sunlight on her hair made it glow brighter than ever. It almost hurt to look at.

"Yes?"

"Well, as I found out about half an hour ago when Tetch sprung me from my cell, it turned out he'd been stealing circuitry to try and rebuild his mind control devices."

"It worked?"

"No, but all that metal made for a good bludgeoning weapon to take down the guard."

Edward turned to Jervis, suitably impressed. "Good job."

"Thank you."

* * *

Of course he would pull out a gun. That was just how Bruce's life worked. It was bad enough that Crane had escaped to begin with; the fact that Batman had been at Arkham during the breakout was salt in the wound. He'd been watching the Joker at the time, partly to prevent any further attempts to get out of his cell, and partly to see if he'd react violently to his makeshift lock pick being confiscated. It hadn't occurred to him that Crane should be observed as well.

It had also never occurred to him that Crane could use conventional weapons as opposed to the fear gas. Obviously, he could, but he never had. And now Batman was on the wrong end of not only a gun, but a scythe. "You know how to use that?"

Crane responded by cocking the hammer. "Do you want to test it?"

"What makes you think it'll do any damage?" It would. The Kevlar might keep the bullets from piercing his armor, but it wouldn't lessen the force of the impact. And if he hit in a spot where the plates separated, or he managed a headshot…the suit wasn't foolproof. He just hoped Crane didn't know that.

He did, unfortunately. "Oh, please. I'm not an idiot. I know the difference between the bulletproof vests in movies and how they work in real life. All I'd have to do to break through it is to hit the same spot twice."

"Do you know what the odds of that are?"

"Yes. They're low. We just discussed how I'm not an idiot, didn't we? I couldn't do it anyway." He tilted his head towards his gun-holding hand, shaking as badly as the rest of his body. "Nor could I hit you in the head. But I _could _hit your body. And that would incapacitate you long enough for me to get this straight against your head and fire again."

He had no idea how much experience Crane had with a gun, but he was right. Shaking or not, it would be almost impossible to miss at such close range, and the act of stepping back might provoke him into firing. Still, just because Crane was correct didn't mean he had to let him know that. "You're assuming this is ordinary Kevlar."

"It isn't?" His tone didn't let slip whether he believed the lie or not, but he bit his lip, thinking. "Tell me Batman, how did you get out here?"

"We've been through this." He wished he had some means of distraction, a diversion that would allow him to get the gun from Crane's hand. But he couldn't risk it now, especially given the man's tremors. The chances of one of them being accidentally shot were far too high.

"Not _how _you knew to come here, how you _got _here. The method of transportation. Did you drive?"

"Yes?"

He smirked. "In your Batmobile?"

"That's not what it's called."

"But you drove it?"

"Yes." Crane giggled. The fact that driving the Tumbler in broad daylight was absolutely ridiculous had not escaped Bruce's notice, but what was he supposed to do, take one of his cars out? The license plate numbers could be traced. "What's your point?"

"My point." He stood, gun still pointed at Batman, the scythe nearly falling from his other hand. It was still bandaged, and he likely couldn't grasp well with it, considering the extensive injury. He held it tighter, almost hugging it against his body. "My point is that I need to go back into Gotham and get things, and you're going to drive me."

Unbelievable. It was bad enough that a man too weak and shaking too badly to fight had managed to keep Bruce from subduing him. Essentially requesting that Batman chauffer him around the city was too much. "The only place I'm driving you is back to Arkham."

"You might want to remember which side of the gun you're on, before you refuse."

"Try it," he said, with far more confidence than he felt. If Crane hit him, it would take him down, but it was a gamble he'd have to make.

Crane, however, didn't shoot. His arm lowered slightly, though still aiming the weapon at Batman. "No. You're almost certainly lying about the armor's ability to withstand gunfire, but I'd rather not chance things and get tackled before I can shoot again."

"Then you've got nothing to manipulate me with."

"Yes, I do." His eyes glittered. "There's always your one rule."

And before Bruce could ask what that meant, he'd turned his wrist, bringing his shaking hand forward until the barrel of the pistol came to rest against his chest, under the blade of the scythe. Right over his heart.

"Don't—"

"Don't come near me." Crane stepped back, gun remaining in place. "Letting me shoot myself is essentially killing me, is it not? And you won't let that happen. So when I say you're driving me, I mean it."

_Goddamn it. _"You wouldn't do it."

"Wouldn't I? If I go back to Arkham, I'm dead. So it's either get out of the city, or die. And I'd rather kill myself than let the Joker get a hold of me." The spark had gone from his eyes, leaving them cold, icy. "Look at me and try telling me I wouldn't."

"It doesn't have to be this way. You—"

"Your car. Now." Keeping his eyes on Batman, he made his way toward the door. "Let's go."

* * *

AN: When Batman refers to other things going on in the city, he means the other Arkham breakouts. The Nigma/Isley/Tetch bit actually occurs at an earlier time than the Bruce/Jonathan confrontation.

All of Tetch's lines come from either _Alice in Wonderland _or _Through the Looking Glass. _He is ridiculously hard to do dialogue for. If he keeps being featured prominently, I think he'll start speaking like a normal person. Part of the time, anyway.


	13. Rides

AN: Apologies if I'm a bit slow on review replies; yesterday for whatever reason my computer stopped sending me Review Alert emails. I've checked my account, I haven't accidentally disabled that function, but I'm not getting them. And if anyone's sent me a PM in the past day, I haven't gotten it. I'm sorry.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

"Let me see if I've got this straight." Edward winced against the harsh noon sunlight, looked down at the pavement. "We're trying to hunt down Jonathan with absolutely no idea where's he headed."

"Pretty much." Pamela wound her hair around her fingers, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she looked around. Her body language suggested she was waiting for something, though what, Edward couldn't be sure. She hadn't bothered to tell him.

"And he left in the middle of the night, so he has an enormous lead."

"Yeah."

"So for all you know, he's crossed the border by now."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, eyebrows slanting downward as she turned to regard him. "And they say you're the one who's good at reading people? He's still in Gotham, Eddie. It's obvious."

_Obvious? _Had her note contained information his hadn't? True, no one ever seemed to leave Gotham, no matter how many times they spoke of how they hated the city, but Jonathan seemed serious. And given the whole 'Joker trying to kill him' thing, Edward was very inclined to believe he'd leave. "And you know this how?"

"What I was going to say," Jervis offered, "was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race."

Pam brushed her hair out of her face so she could stare more effectively. "_What_?"

"Why, the best way to explain is to do it."

"What a Caucus-race _is_," Edward said, stepping between the pair before Pamela could try committing murder. "Is running in a circle over and over. I assume that's what you surmise Jonathan's up to?"

"Ah." She went back to winding her hair, biting on her lip as she scanned the lot. "Yes, it is."

"Why?"

"Because he's paranoid. I guarantee he went off in the direction he doesn't want to go, just to throw people off his trail. Besides, he's too narcissistic to take off with nothing but the clothes on his back. He's probably heading back to his old apartment, to get his things."

How long had she been puzzling this out, before Tetch broke her out of the cell? "Okay, that's a starting point. Assuming he hasn't already gone there. Do you know where his apartment is?"

Pam shrugged.

He held in a sigh and turned to Jervis. "Have you got any idea?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Perfect. So, how are we supposed to find him?"

"I figured that was where you'd come in." Pam crossed her arms. "Weren't _you _the one who said your detecting skills rivaled the Batman's?"

Why did it always fall on his shoulders? Not that he minded a good challenge, but really. He was still recovering from burn wounds. "Fine. How are we getting out of here?"

The words had barely left his lips when a minivan came flying around the corner, the left wheels leaving the ground for a split second. It halted before them, tires screaming against the pavement. As Edward winced, the window rolled down and Harley Quinn stuck her head through, pigtails swinging in the breeze. "Come on guys, let's light this candle!"

"Which way are we going?" Edward asked, sliding the side door over.

"That depends a great deal on where you want to get to," Jervis said, following after.

They'd barely closed the door when the vehicle was off again, Edward slamming back against his seat from the sudden burst of speed. Well, this would be interesting day to say the least. Harley would probably crash and they'd all be arrested or killed, but it would be interesting.

* * *

"Why do you have a scythe?"

_It's probably not best, _Bruce reflected, as soon as he'd finished asking, _to remind him of his other weapon. _Crane still had the gun, and in the tight space of the Tumbler there was little Batman could do to stop him from shooting, either himself or Bruce. Little that wouldn't result in a crash, anyway. Still, he had to ask. It looked intimidating, but there was little he could do with it in here. And he couldn't wield it very well with his injured hand; it seemed it was taking his all not to drop it. He had the handle pressed against his body with his arm more than his hand.

And the shaking wasn't helping. Bruce couldn't help but be concerned that Crane would injure himself by accident. Batman couldn't care less. Though the blood would be a nuisance to clean up.

"I like scythes." He stared straight ahead, gun still pushed against his shirt, under the scythe blade. "Turn here."

He'd been driving for about ten minutes, following a path back to Gotham entirely through the back roads. Crane obviously wanted to avoid detection as badly as he did. The GPD might not be out for his blood anymore, but the last thing a situation like this needed was complications. "Put it down. You're going to cut yourself."

"No, I _won't._" He held on tighter in response. "I've got _that _out of my system, thank you."

_Not what I meant._ He tried not to look at the scars visible at the edges of Crane's sleeves. "You're shivering."

"I'm _cold._"

Bruce couldn't tell from the tone if he was being sarcastic or not. He almost certainly was, given that he'd been shaking that way during their last two encounters as well, but if it warmth did reduce the shaking, there was less of a chance of accidental injury. He turned up the heat.

Crane watched as he did so, rolled his eyes, and went back to staring forward. A silence fell between them, heavy and uncomfortable. Out the tinted windows, tree after tree rolled by, branches dead and empty, looking cold as the air outside.

"Where are we going?" he asked, after around five minutes.

Crane went rigid, hand with the scythe jerking, making Batman tense. He didn't cut himself, but he came close.

_Note to self: do not speak unexpectedly around him._

"Why should I tell you?" Crane asked, once he'd composed himself, voice as stiff as his posture.

"I'm going to find out eventually. What do you have to gain from not telling me now?"

"What do I have to gain from telling you?" He put his feet on the seat, resting the arm of his gun-holding hand on his knees.

"Fine." It wasn't that important, though he did want to know what was going on before he got there. Just, the part of him that realized attempting to do the usual knock-the-villain-out-and-drag-him-back routine wouldn't work here was hoping to establish some form of trust. Not even trust, really, as much as lack of open hatred and fear.

"Apartment."

He wasn't sure if Crane had spoken or if he'd imagined it, for a moment. It was just quiet enough to make him question himself. "What?"

"My apartment." His scorn wasn't quite so blatant now, but he still spoke as if each syllable pained him. "To get things." Off Batman's look, he added, "What, I'm not allowed to have material possessions? Lord knows _you've _got enough."

True, but he didn't leave things unattended in an apartment, in _Gotham _of all places, and expect them to be there when he got back. "This being the apartment you lived in with the J—"

"_No_." The gun slid down, a fraction of an inch or so. He didn't seem to notice. "The one I lived alone in. Before the whole mess with the J—Harley."

"That was over a year ago." And here he'd thought Crane could be rational when medicated. Apparently not.

"It'll still be there." The scorn was gone, replaced with absolute certainty. "I made sure of that."

Oh, that didn't sound at all ominous. "How?"

"Make a right here."

He did, the sharpness of it making Crane slam the pistol against himself by accident. Bruce winced. "You need to put the gun down." He hoped his tone came across as nonthreatening, but in the Bat voice, it was unlikely.

"Shut up," Crane said, managing to sound exactly like an angry six year old.

Once again, he had to remind himself that trying to knock the man out would do neither of them any good. "Do you _want _to hurt yourself? Because you're going to." And that was a massive understatement.

"I'm _fine_." He pushed the gun back up, holding the scythe in place with one knee as he brushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Hardly."

"Why do you care? You want me to die anyway."

Was a chronic inability to remember the point of prior conversations a symptom of mental illness? Because Crane had brought this up during their two previous conversations, and Batman had explained himself then. Not getting it the first time, he could understand, Crane had been injured and out of touch then, but the second had taken place under more stable conditions. Relatively stable, anyway. "I do not," he said, as patiently as he could manage. "I only want to bring you to justice."

"Which will get me killed."

There was really no reasoning with him. "You were at the hospital for a week when he was there, and you're still alive."

"Yes. And that's pushing the odds as it is. I didn't want to risk it any further."

"So your solution is to run from your problems."

He made a sound Batman supposed was a laugh. "Considering that my problem is the _Joker_, you can't exactly fault me for that."

"Considering all your other problems, it's still a terrible idea."

"I don't have other problems."

He looked away from the road again to regard his companion. "You can't seriously believe that."

"I disagree," Crane said, voice flat.

And this was coming from a former psychiatrist. Not that he'd been a good psychiatrist, but even so. "So, in your world, hurting yourself is perfectly acceptable?"

Crane twitched, distinguishable from his usual shaking in that this movement managed to convey anger. "I don't do that anymore."

"Not at the moment. What happens when you run out of the medication?"

"Obviously, I'll get more. Do you think I want to go back to that?"

"Which is stealing." It was unnerving, almost, how talking to a psychotic wasn't so different from talking to a child. And it had about the same success rate. That is, hardly any. "People without problems don't steal." Or conduct experiments on others.

"They do if that's all that's keeping them from stark raving madness." He smirked, looking as confident as he usually did, even with a gun to his chest. "And you act as if you have any authority to speak about having problems. As though you don't?"

"It's different."

"How so?"

There was no point in explaining. Even if he could, without revealing facts that would compromise his identity, he doubted Crane would grasp the differences. "You wouldn't understand."

"I'm sure." He shook his head, smile widening. "If you're ever feeling up to divulging the information that you use to justify dressing up like a flying rodent, I'd _love _to hear it."

Bruce considered the man's words. If this could be used to his advantage…Crane wasn't the only one who could manipulate others to a desired outcome. "If I talked to you, would you put the gun down?"

"Nice try. No, Batman, your psychoses are not interesting enough for me to give up my life to hear." He paused, somehow looking down at Batman while looking up at him. "And I doubt you'd tell me anything of interest that wasn't fabricated."

He should have known Crane would be too intelligent to fall for that. "Just put it down. I won't try anything."

"Right, like you didn't just try that. I'm sure you won't turn this car around the second you've taken the weapons."

"I'm not trying to trick you. I want to help you." As he'd only said roughly a hundred times before.

"Somehow, I doubt that." He raised the gun, which had slid down again, due to the shaking, back to the level of his heart.

"I'm honestly not. Not everyone thinks the way you do, you know."

Crane blinked, tilting his head. "Other people think?"

Bruce wasn't sure if he was serious or not, and on top of that, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

* * *

AN: I also want to apologize if I'm a regular reader of any of your stories and haven't reviewed your latest chapters. It seems on top of review alerts (and possibly PMs) I'm not getting my story alerts either. I've emailed about this, but so far there's been no response.

Tetch's lines are from Lewis Carroll, again. Jonathan's last line is something I've been known to say in real life. Yes, I know people think, but my mind works in the way that if I can't see/hear/feel/otherwise sense it, it's hard to remember it happens. I'm funny that way. Jonathan knows people do, obviously, but being a narcissist, he doesn't care about the opinions of hardly anyone else.


	14. Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile

AN: SNOW DAY! Apparently, being twenty below and having severe weather advisories isn't enough to cancel classes, but eight inches in twenty degree weather is. Well, I'm not going to question it. It's awesome.

In other news, I'm still not getting alert emails or PMs. So if you've sent me a review reply or a PM after four o'clock on Monday, I haven't gotten it. Just in case someone desperately needs to speak to me (I can't imagine why they would) I'm making my email address visible on my profile, until everything's sorted out.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Breaking out, Joker reflected, was barely more challenging than doing tying his shoes, when he put his mind to it. There was less blood involved when he was tying his shoes—usually, anyway, there had been that time in the nightclub—but the level of difficulty was about the same.

Which made him all the more pissed that everyone else in Arkham had managed it before him.

"They didn't even _ask _if I wanted to come." He turned the keys in the ignition, casting a glance to the nurse in the passenger's seat. "I'd say that's in_cred_ibly rude, wouldn't you, Annie? Can I call you Annie?"

He had no idea if Annie was her first name, given that she'd only ever told him her surname, Hearst. But she _looked _like an Annie, with her pale freckly skin and ridiculously curly auburn hair. And she always sounded so goddamn cheerful, the Joker could easily picture her singing "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow." Besides, leaning over to examine the ID information on her pass key would take effort, and she was in no position to correct him, dead from the syringe stabbed through her eye and all.

Annie didn't answer, which was also incredibly rude, but for the sake of a civil discussion he let it slide. "You're right, it is hurtful. I mean, sure, I wanna kill Jonny, but I'd let them _talk _to him for a few minutes first, you know, say their goodbyes and all. They're definitely not gonna get that chance now." He paused, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he pulled onto the road. "Even Harley-girl abandoned me."

Harley. That one really did hurt, or came as close to hurting as things could for him. Harley was supposed to be _his_. He was definitely restricting her sex privileges for this. And her breathing privileges, for three minutes or so, until she got the point. Stupid little Jonny Crane, stealing his Bat and then having the gall to take his girl from him too. What did Jonny need Harley's attention for, anyway? It wasn't like he was going to screw her, the man was clearly camper than a row of tents, and even so, Joker had had to persuade him for weeks before he tried anything. No, it must have been out of pure spite.

Well, the Joker would show him. It would take nothing short of divine intervention to save the bastard's life now, at least nothing that he could see. Actually, divine intervention wasn't a sure bet either. After all, God wasn't what mattered in the universe, he and Batsy were.

"Though, it is _kinda _a good thing that they broke out, I guess. Otherwise we wouldn't have had the opportunity to get, uh, better acquainted."

Usually in the mornings, the orderlies put him in a straitjacket right before she came to inject him with whatever it was the asylum wanted in his bloodstream. They'd done that this morning, and he'd considered fighting, but the orderlies were armed with tazers. Being electrocuted didn't particularly bother him, but it would incapacitate him long enough to be thrown in lock-down, where escape would take even more effort. So he'd decided to pretend for a bit that good things came to those who wait—and what a load of crap that was, if he'd waited for Batman to notice him instead of killing Brian Douglas and the others, he'd still be waiting—and let himself be restrained.

As fate would have it, however, luck was on his side, as it so often was. The moment they'd finished strapping him in, the news came that his so-called girlfriend and the others had jumped the fence, and the orderlies had left to assist the search. Giving him enough time to free himself from the straitjacket. It wasn't hard to do, provided the person trying it was flexible, which he was. When Annie finally came back, it was no problem getting her close enough to be taken hostage, convincing the guards outside that they should hand over their walkie-talkies if they didn't want him to get all stabbity on her, and locking the guards in his cell.

He'd kept Annie as a hostage in case he ran into anyone else on the way out, but apparently everyone—including the idiots who were supposed to be watching the security footage—was still looking for the other villains. She'd given him the keys to her car and he'd given her a needle to the eye socket. And probably the brain, he'd gotten it pretty far back there. The optic nerve at least. She'd died at once but he'd swirled the syringe around the socket for a bit, just to be sure. Never knew when a corpse would pull a Rasputin, after all.

"You know, you're not a very good conversationalist."

She had nothing to say in her defense, apparently. He tended to have that effect on people, speechlessness. And also death. He supposed he'd have to carry on the conversation one-sided.

"Every heard of a blood eagle, Annie?"

She had not, it seemed.

"It was an execution method of the Old Norse people, see. Or, they think it was. Some say the whole thing was a myth. How it works is, you slice open the back of a person, cut their ribs off near the spine, and pull 'em out. You can also pull the lungs out if you wanna, or just pour salt in the wounds. And you can cut the guy open from the front if you want, instead of the back. Then you slice the sternum open, and pull the ribs back like you're doing heart surgery, only a lot wider." He took his hands off the steering wheel to demonstrate, braking just before they went off the road.

Annie's body shook slightly, almost as a nod.

"Right. Anyway, they call it a blood eagle because they look like wings, the ribs you've pulled out. So I'm thinking I might try that on Jonny. It'd be ironic, you see, because I used to call him 'angel.'" Although he hadn't called him that too many times, just toward the end when he'd really started to break. It was a shame, it honestly was, that Jonny's actions were forcing his hand this way, because New Jonny was a hell of a lot more interesting than his former self. If it weren't for his constant attention whoring, Joker would have liked him quite a bit. The man had fired a nail gun into his own hand, after all. That kind of psychosis was endlessly entertaining. But no, he had to go and break out again, and thus make Joker kill him.

And anyway, the blood eagle wouldn't be suitably ironic because he'd rarely used 'angel.' He didn't know any 'princess' tortures, though there was one for 'kitten.' He didn't own a cat's claws though, and didn't particularly feel like hunting one down. Joker had always been of the opinion that simpler methods of inflicting pain worked just as well as the elaborate ones. The equipment wasn't what made the act, the showmanship was. Why waste money on intricate devices when a cheese grater or a box of matches would do just as well?

But he'd be lying to say he didn't have favorite torture devices. Iron maidens were nice, and the terror of the thing slowly closing on its victim just couldn't be replicated by pounding nails into the skin or dragging someone face first into a jagged piece of glass. Catherine wheels had their appeal as well, though his favorite of them all would have to be the pear.

"_Poire d'angoisse_," he said to Annie, as if to clarify, though he hadn't been speaking out loud and had no way of knowing if she spoke French. "Or a choke pear. Not like an actual pear, though it was named after a French one that was near impossible to eat raw and tasted like death. It started out as a term for a gag, because it's hard to swallow, see, but eventually people decided that having a pear-shaped gag wasn't enough. Torture weapons are all about, uh, functionality, after all, so why use something that only shuts people up, if it can shut 'em up and hurt 'em at the same time?"

He paused for a second to let Annie take that in, swerved back into his own lane of traffic.

"So along came the pear as you and I know it. As _I _do, anyway. They'd put it in the mouth of a victim—any orifice they could fit it in, actually—at turn this key at the bottom. Now, the pear was made up of four or so separate pieces of metal, and when you turn the key, the pieces, uh, spread out."

He really liked that. If he were ever near a torture museum, he'd stop in and steal one. Too bad Gotham didn't have those. As far as he knew, torture museums were mostly in Europe, though Salem, Massachusetts might have one. Or not, he wasn't sure. Either way, he couldn't use it on Jonny, so it was irrelevant. Besides, death by evisceration or distention tended to make for an ugly corpse, and he wasn't sure he wanted that. Jonny's body might serve as an example, to show Harley what happened when people were disloyal to the Joker, and it wouldn't make the same impact if the body was unrecognizable.

Though if Harley found Jonny first, and was around when the killing occurred, it really didn't matter how the corpse looked.

Well, he could work out the details then. The important thing now was deciding on the method of death. Or not so much the method, as the broader umbrella it would fall under. There were five basic categories of torture: hot, cold, sharp, blunt, and loud. That was without counting things like starvation, tickling, or sensory deprivation, but those took longer, weeks often, and he didn't want to spend weeks dealing with that stupid little whore. The Joker would probably end up choosing sharp. Knives and the like always got the best reaction. All right, so he'd get his blades, track down Jonny, and improvise from there.

One thing he would not do, however, and of this he was certain, was put a smile on Jonny's face.

Jonny didn't deserve it. Joker glanced at his scars in the rearview mirror, dark and twisted in contrast to his pale, smooth skin. He hadn't put the makeup back on yet. Given his tendency to stick his head out the window as he drove, that was probably a good thing, but he missed it. This wasn't his real face, not anymore, but the mask they forced him to wear. The paint and lipstick made the outside match the in, and he wasn't quite comfortable without it.

The scars were a reminder, however, of that splendor he had, the power. Other people thought the scars were hideous, something to be feared. Other people were idiots. The scars were beautiful, a work of art. Like him, and what he did. Chaos was more than just destroying things. It took talent to twist his victims like he had Harvey and Jonny. Jonny didn't know how lucky he was, to have his push over the edge come from such an artist. Before he had been boring, as black and white as everyone else in this stupid little world.

Well, sepia, maybe. He'd had the whole fear toxin thing going for him, but not much else.

Then the Joker had come along and breathed life into him, taken a dull beige canvas and splashed it with color. Made Jonathan his creation, his influence greater than anyone else who'd dominated the doctor before. It should have been perfect. Then again, Joker should have remembered the cautionary tale of Adam and Eve, realized that sometimes the creation is ungrateful. Sometimes it finds the thing that will hurt the creator the most and does just that.

And he was hurt, as much as he was capable of being. Mostly angry, but hurt.

Not that all was lost. The creation may rebel against the creator, but the creator still holds the power. And can still exact punishment. Banishing Jonny from Eden, as it were. Only instead of sending him to the harsh outside world, he'd be sending him to his death. Harsh, perhaps, but it had been Jonny who'd brought this on himself.

Besides, there was beauty in death as well. Jonny was still his work of art, and he should be grateful for such a sendoff.

"Right?" Joker turned to regard Annie, looking for admiration rather than approval, and nodded her head when she didn't speak on her own. "Right."

* * *

AN: Joker is referring to the musical _Annie_, which includes the songs "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow" and "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile."

Joker's favorite torture devices are my own. Yes, I have favorite torture devices. In fact, I was in a torture museum in Germany over the summer without a translator, and I was able to go through and explain to the rest of the group what each device did, as they were unable to read the German explanations. I don't know what's wrong with me, but this is how I entertain myself.


	15. Denial

AN: To the best of my knowledge, my alerts still aren't working. So if you want to PM me, or respond to a review reply or anything, use the email link on my page. I'll let everyone know when it's working again (if it starts working again).

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

"This," said Pam, as they slammed the trunk shut, "is one nice car."

From inside the trunk, the vehicle's owner could be heard, albeit it muffled, shouting and trying to kick it back open. A passerby gave them an odd look and Edward prayed that they wouldn't be recognized. The clothes they'd stolen were commonplace enough, he hoped, not to attract attention, though Jervis's hat stood out. Well, that couldn't be avoided.

He turned back to Pam. "Be that as it may, that little excursion just cost us another twenty minutes."

"And still no Jonathan to show for it," Harley added, as though she had room to speak. She'd spent a good quarter of an hour looking at shoes when they'd gotten disguises. And used all the gas in the minivan. They'd have had to switch vehicles anyway, police tracking down the license plate and all, but still.

Pam shrugged. "Get out of the driver's seat, Harley."

"But I like driving."

"But you suck at it. Up."

"Fine." Harley slid over into the passenger's seat, frowning slightly. "So where to?"

"No idea." Pam sat, adjusting the seat and mirror. "Any thoughts, Eddie?"

"I think if he has any sense, he'll be long gone by now."

"You worry too much." Pam watched from the rearview mirror as Jervis stepped in, taking off the second the door was closed. "Trust me, he's not leaving Gotham. None of us ever do."

* * *

'Welcome to Gotham City' the sign read. Or it had at one point, anyway. Apparently, being on the back roads offered no protection from vandalism, and it was hard to make out the original words under all the paint. Names, declarations of love or anger, gang tags, and even a Bat logo adorned the sign, layer after layer until the original blue metal was almost completely covered.

Crane felt his stomach go cold, as he glanced at it. This was going to be his last stop in the only place he'd ever regarded as a home. Where he'd worked, made a life, and made a new one when the old one shattered. And now he'd be leaving all of that behind. Of course it was necessary—to not do so would be death—but it was still hard. Despite all the torments he'd endured in Gotham, his life in Georgia had been worse, and it hurt to know he'd be leaving that behind.

"Where do you plan on going?" the Batman asked, as if reading his mind.

_Idiot. _The thought came instantaneously, so fast Crane couldn't be sure it was his or Scarecrow's. "As if I'm going to tell you." It would be hard enough getting away from the Bat to escape in the first place; just because the discussion had been somewhat civil didn't mean he was about to start making stupid slips. Did everyone in Gotham get their ideas about criminal behavior from bad television?

The Batman was going to come looking for him, that much Crane knew. Everyone had heard the news story of his following that corrupt businessman back to Hong Kong and bringing him in. Nowhere on Earth was safe, not if Batman knew you were there. His new life would involve a lot of running. Joy.

"Why do you care, anyway?" he asked, shaking fingers running up and down the barrel of the gun. That made the Batman nervous he knew, he could tell by the way the man's jaw tightened every time he moved the hand on the gun at all. So he was doing it as much as possible. If he was going to be afraid, the Bat would be too. "I'll be out of your city. What I do shouldn't matter anymore."

"What you do is torture people. That's not acceptable, no matter where you do it."

He didn't get it, of course. No one ever did. "So, acting as a vigilante is all right? They're both illegal."

"No one else is protecting this city. I do what I do to help people."

"So do I."

"You're insane." The words came almost before Crane had finished speaking, low and angry. He might have smiled, if the situation wasn't so miserable. It seemed the Batman's experience of the fear toxin was fresh in his memory. And that it had been a very bad trip indeed.

Good.

"No, I'm not. That's just what people like you call me to let yourself feel better about what you do."

"What I do is justice."

Crane thought of the 'hiding Harvey Dent' and 'poisoning Jonathan Crane' incidents, shaking his head. "If that makes you feel better."

"Does it make you feel better to pretend that you're sane?"

Oh, what a comeback that was. So the Batman didn't like reminders that he wasn't such a saint. He'd have to keep that in mind. "If I were insane, I wouldn't think my actions were harmful. Do you honestly think I don't know the effects of the fear toxin? I've felt it firsthand, thanks to you."

The Batman's jaw clenched again at that, but only for a moment. "You just said that you help people."

"I study fear so that I can learn to help people overcome it. I highly doubt any of my subjects were too pleased about the research."

Now Batman was shaking his head. "You can't justify torture by calling it research."

Again with the torture. Why was he the only one who could see why it would benefit humanity, in the long run? Why did no one ever understand? "I was going to save the world."

The Bat took his eyes off the road, stared at him. And to think that he lectured Crane for risking his life. "You were going to poison Gotham and sit back as it destroyed itself."

That hurt. The memory of Ra's al Ghul's betrayal was still every bit as painful as it had been the day he'd regained enough lucidity to understand what happened. Both for the betrayal itself, and the fact that he'd let himself be played into it. "That wasn't supposed to be for real," he muttered, as much to himself as to Batman.

"Even so." There was no pity in the man's voice, not anymore. Crane almost missed it. At least with the patronizing sympathy, there was less chance of getting hurt. "You were going to intimidate others to get the money to hurt more people. And the fact that you think that's justifiable proves, beyond a shadow of doubt, that you are not a well person."

"You're one to talk."

"Is that the only thing you can say in your defense?"

Crane didn't answer. What was the point? The Batman would never understand. Nobody did. That was the curse of having superior insight, to be always looked down on and regarded as mad. "Fine, so you think I'm insane. You're wrong, but I can't change your mind on that. That isn't the point."

"What is the point, then?" He sounded as if he wasn't enjoying this conversation at all. Crane wondered why he let himself be drawn into these discussions, if they pained him so badly. Perhaps the Batman was a masochist. It would certainly explain why he risked suicide swinging around the city to stop criminals. He acted as if he wanted to save Gotham, but deep down he wanted to destroy himself.

In another place at another time, Crane might have thought him interesting to analyze. But fascinating as the man was, he was still a monster to the doctor's eyes, first and foremost. He could remember every detail of his second encounter with the Bat, when he'd been forced to take the toxin, and it still made him want to scream. Intriguing though he was, he'd caused irreversible brain damage, forced Crane to live his life dependent on something, even if that something was just a pill. It was still a weakness, still something he was disgusted to have.

"The point, Batman." He said it slowly, as if it was two separate words. "The point is that if I stay at Arkham, I die. And don't suggest that the Joker won't kill me because I entertain him. The man has more mood swings than a premenstrual teenager, and anyway, that's _not _any more appealing of a prospect than death."

"So you're going to run away."

"_Yes._" He pushed the gun harder against himself, ignoring the pain it caused. "Stop saying it as though it's something cowardly. It's the only thing keeping me from torture or death. It's the logical thing to do, and if you try and take me back to Arkham, you will be aiding the Joker in his quest to kill me." He paused, glanced over at Batman. "Or…is that what you want? It would make your job far easier, wouldn't it? If there were less people like me to deal with. Is that why you want me to go back so badly? So that you can get me off the streets for good, without technically breaking your rule?"

He shook his head again. "You're paranoid."

"Am I? Or are you just saying that because my assessment's too close for comfort?"

"No, I'm saying it because you're sick."

Crane sighed, leaning back in his seat. "And we're back to that."

"I do not want you dead. I want you to get better." He ignored Crane's laugh at that, aside from tightening his hands on the steering wheel. "Barring that, I want you contained so you can't hurt anyone—or yourself—" he added, with a glance to Crane's hand, "anymore. I do not want the Joker to kill you."

His face flushed at the mention of his injuries and he looked away so it wouldn't show, hugging the scythe tighter than ever. The tip of the blade pushed into his opposite arm; uncomfortable, but not yet forceful enough to cut. "If you didn't want the Joker to kill me, you wouldn't want me to go back."

"I was _watching _the asylum," the Batman said, through clenched teeth. "Why do you think the Joker hadn't broken out? Did you think I was lying when I promised I'd look out for you?"

"Yes."

"Well, I wasn't."

"Even if you weren't, this is the Joker we're talking about. He'd find a way." Crane gave his companion a look over, shook his head. "You're not all powerful. You can't be there every second of every day. Eventually, he'd get out, and I'd be either maimed or killed. So excuse me for wanting to avoid that."

"The Joker likes a challenge." Batman's voice had gone cold, analytical, as if he was reading from the man's Arkham file. Knowing him, he probably had copies of those files. "There'd have been a far greater chance that he'd lose interest in you if you'd stayed at the hospital. Now that you've left, he'll consider it an attack against him. He won't stop until he hunts you down."

"Do you think I don't know that?" His face reddened again, but this time with anger. "I'm perfectly aware of that, thank you very much. That's why it's imperative that I get out of Gotham, now. I'm not running from my problems, as you seem to think. I'm running from certain death."

"And from your chances of recovery."

He felt the overwhelming urge to scream at the Batman for that. If he had a test subject for every time he'd been called crazy, he'd have finished the research he needed years ago. But yelling at him would just add proof to the Bat's stupid little theory that he was mad. So he settled for placing a finger on the gun's trigger instead.

Behind the mask and the black paint those brown eyes widened. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" he asked calmly, stroking the gun with the finger of his other hand, scythe held in place by his arm.

"Don't play games with me, Crane. You're going to hurt yourself."

"Possibly."

"I thought you wanted to live."

"Ideally, yes." He moved the bandaged hand away from the gun, running it along the scythe's blade. He did it too lightly to cut, though it did leave rust on his fingers. "However, dying in a quick and relatively painless manner is far preferable to whatever the Joker's planning."

His eyes narrowed. "So you're willing to shoot yourself just to screw around with me?"

"I'm not trying to shoot myself. However, given my condition there's a good possibility that I might slip. Perhaps if you stopped making annoying little implications about me, I might let go of the trigger."

"Your illness isn't an implication."

"I disagree." But he did let go of the trigger. The chance that he may have to shoot himself remained; he'd rather die than let the Joker get hold of him, but he didn't want to accidentally fire on himself in the middle of a conversation. He glanced over at the Batman, who'd relaxed visibly. "You know what I find amusing about you?"

He didn't answer.

"You've got money. Clearly. This car alone must cost millions. So either you're rich or working for someone who is."

"What's your point?" His voice was rough again, threatening. Crane couldn't help but smirk this time. The Batman didn't like leaving clues to his identity. Maybe one day he'd give figuring out the man behind the mask a shot. But not today. That wasn't the point.

"You're loaded. And you want to help this city. It seems to me that with all your wealth, you could take care of Gotham in far better ways than dressing up like an animal and gliding through the streets. But it's not really about protecting the city, is it? Bat. Man. No, it's about thrill-seeking. It's about making yourself feel powerful. That mask isn't there to make you a symbol; it's there to hide you. Do you know what I see when I look at you? I don't see a hero. I see an irresponsible, reckless child who is willing to let others suffer because he'd rather spend his resources showing off than actually doing a damn thing to help others. A coward. That's what I see."

For a moment they drove in silence, the Batman's hands gripping the wheel hard enough that Crane could just picture the skin under the gloves going white, mouth working. And just when Crane thought he'd stunned the man speechless, he spoke.

"Do you know what I see when I look at you, Crane?"

"Enlighten me." This should be good.

"I see a vindictive, frightened little boy who has the intelligence and skill to help others, but would rather torture and waste his potential because he wants to deny his sickness rather than help himself."

It was a slap to the face. He sat for a moment, stunned, before realizing he cared what the Batman thought of him and felt slapped all over again. "I…I don't see that."

"No. I didn't think you would."

* * *

AN: The idea of Crane thinking that his experiments will help people in the long run comes from the novelization of _The Dark Knight._ From the novel, the world according to Jonathan Crane:

"He was sure that in five years, maybe less, he would arrive at a grand theory, one that would prove that fear was the basis for all of humanity's errors and that he could cure fear and thus usher mankind into a true Garden of Eden, one that would endure until the sun cooled. Crane envisioned himself as the benevolent ruler of the entire planet once the fear-induced borders and barriers had been eradicated and the Earth became, truly, a brave new world. He would begin by learning to induce fear and with the knowledge he gained would learn to inoculate against it."

I really like the idea of Jonathan thinking he's helping, to the point where I think I may go back and slightly alter his conversation with Harley in _Mad Friends _regarding his motivations to include that. I also like it because it makes Jonathan a complete narcissist, and narcissists never fail to entertain me. The funny thing about them is that they're basically untreatable, there's no way to convince them that they aren't the center of the universe.


	16. Apartment

AN: The alerts still aren't working. I may have to send another email to maintenance. So if you want to contact me, keep on using the email on my profile.

Sorry about the delay on this chapter. I visited home for the weekend to see _Wicked _(which is fantastic, by the way) and that combined with receiving very bad news last night impeded the chapter a bit.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

"This is it." Crane tilted his head toward a brick apartment building. Like its neighbors—like all building in the Narrows, really—the complex somehow managed to convey a sense of desolation, as if it was as hopeless as its inhabitants surely were. What did it say about a city, when it could even drain the life out of the buildings?

He nodded, pulled into an alley, moving as far from the view of the street as he could before parking.

Crane laughed at the effort. "You're driving a tank, Batman. Do you think getting off the main road will really keep it from being noticed?"

_Well, what do you suggest? _He almost asked, but reflected that asking Crane for his opinion would be letting the man go off on another tangent. The first one had been more than enough. Wordless, he opened the Tumbler, watching as the doctor struggled out. Difficult as it must have been for a man with two weapons and a bad hand, he got free without leaving an opening for Batman to safely take the gun.

For a moment they stood, staring at each other. Neither seemed to know which should make the first move.

Batman broke the silence. "Well?"

Crane shook his head. "I'm not leading. You'll tackle me the second my back's turned."

"I would not. You'd be shot if I tried that."

"And?" Crane asked, tilting his head in a way that could have conveyed either genuine confusion or sarcasm. Bruce wasn't sure. Either way, it figured. For someone so intelligent, the man was an idiot. If he was going to try anything, he'd have tried it in the Tumbler where motion was limited.

Not that there was any point in explaining that. Crane was too paranoid to believe it. Criminals never cooperated easily, and he'd come to stop hoping for it, but the frustration had never lessened. It might have had something to do with the fact that the doctor should be smart enough to think rationally and realize there was no way Batman was letting him leave the city. But he was also hopelessly insane, and so the process had to be drawn out like this. Until he found an opening, and it would all be over.

"If I go first, you'll shoot me in the back."

"Well, fantastic. What do you propose we do now?"

"I propose," he said, as patiently as he could under such circumstances. "That you put down the gun, get back in the car, and let me drive you to the hospital." He knew there was no chance even before he said it. Still, better a futile attempt than no attempt at all.

"And they say Joker's the funny one. It'll be a blistering day in Antarctica before that happens." Crane took the briefest glance over his shoulder toward the complex, shuffling backward as he did. As if the Batman would be able to cross the ten feet or so between them in less than two seconds. "Fine. We'll do it like this."

_Like what? _he was about to ask, but Crane abruptly answered the question for him by stepping backwards. He cast another short glance behind him, stepped back again. "You cannot be serious."

"I think you'll find I can."

"You're going to trip over something. And blow your brains out."

Crane did what Batman supposed was a shrug, but given the limited mobility caused by holding the scythe, it was hard to tell. "It's a possibility."

Wonderful. "For someone who wants to stay alive so badly, you take a hell of a lot of risks."

"It's the only way I can get inside without making a chance of you grabbing me. What would you have me do?"

"I would have you get back into the car," he said, a little more Bruce in the voice than he'd intended.

"No."

He tried not to sigh as he watched Crane's slow, awkward progress. "And how do you plan to get inside without someone noticing the weapons?" Even in the Narrows, he doubted the sight of a man with a gun was something people would take without comment. On the street, maybe, but not in their homes. Not that anyone would be stupid enough to try and apprehend him, but there would be a call to the cops at least. Unless his own presence made them decide things were under control.

"We're not going inside." He'd started taking more than a step back at a time, glancing over ever two feet or so. "We'll use the fire escape."

Maybe he wasn't that intelligent after all. "You're going to walk backwards. Up flights of stairs. Holding a gun and a scythe. Is that right?"

Crane nodded. "Yes. What are you trying to imply?"

"And you're supposed to be a genius?"

"And you're supposed to be a selfless hero?" He moved backward onto the first step, glanced back, moved up another.

Bruce resisted the urge to respond with anger, but only just. _Shouting at him won't get you anywhere. He's saying that because he knows it gets to you. Relax. _Easier said than done. Crane knew nothing about him, everything he said was calculated to get the desired emotional response. And he knew that. That didn't make his remarks about Batman's motivations sting any less.

He did what he did to protect Gotham City. People needed dramatic examples, and hiding his identity protected those he cared for. And it made the job that much more effective. No one would fear Bruce Wayne, just as no one would fear Jonathan Crane without his mask or toxins. Until they got close enough to either man to experience the power lurking under the surface. And the mask was a symbol, to invoke that fear before anyone got that close.

Still, it could easily become something to hide behind. Just as fighting crime could become nothing more than getting satisfaction from beating others senseless. It was a thin line, and he was constantly walking it. He'd like to think he didn't waver toward the dark side, but all it would take was one slip, and everything Crane had insinuated would be true.

Not that he was about to let the doctor know that. "Your assessment might carry more weight if you weren't out of your mind."

"And you berated me for using the same response over and over." A smirk went across the man's disarmingly innocent-looking features. "A man who dresses up like a bat clearly has issues. If you were ever caught, you'd be declared just as insane as I've been. We'd probably end up in neighboring cells. So if you're going to taunt me about something, pick something else."

He'd moved far enough up to allow Batman to follow him onto the fire escape. He did so, stepping as slowly as Crane. The last thing he needed was for the doctor to think he was being charged at. Silence fell between them; Bruce didn't want to provoke him any further, not when his actions were already so dangerous, and Crane was apparently satisfied to have had the last word.

They reached the door Batman assumed was Crane's, because the other didn't move up the next flight of stairs, merely stood behind them. "Can you pick locks, Batman?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't have the key anymore," he said, glancing at the door for about half a second. "So you'll need to get us in. And I wouldn't advise forcing it open—_or _breaking a window," he added, as Batman glanced to the glass pane Crane was standing beside. "Really. You're going to want to pick the lock."

He looked at the door, looked at Crane, with a growing sense of unease. His assurance that his possession would be untouched indicated the apartment had been rigged in some way, and he was not looking forward to finding out how. "What did you do to the door?"

"Nothing that will affect you if you pick the lock." He sounded unnervingly happy, for someone Batman couldn't recall ever seeing smile. Whether he was brightened by Bruce's discomfort, or something horrible would happen when he picked the lock and Crane was just a bad liar, he couldn't be sure.

"Why should I trust you?"

He rolled his eyes. He did that a lot, Bruce had noticed. "I'm the paranoid one? Yes, Batman, I made you drive me all the way here instead of shooting you when I had the chance just for the sake of luring you into a trap. It certainly wasn't because all my worldly possessions are here and I'd like to take some of them with me."

"Be that as it may, I still have no reason not to think something awful will happen when I pick the lock and you'll step over my body to get in once it's through."

"Or the trap would keep me from getting in as well, and I'd rather avoid that." Crane sighed, took a few steps toward him before stopping again. "I'll open the door, all right? You need only pick the lock."

"Fine." It didn't less his discomfort in the least, but it was a risk he'd have to take. Being in his apartment—back in his own element—might put Crane at ease enough to slip up. It would only take a second to get the weapons away from him, and as long as he didn't let Crane out of his sight once they got inside, his home field advantage shouldn't be too great.

He picked the lock as quickly as possible, which wasn't too quick given that he refused to take his eyes off Crane as he did so. It was a rather slow process, to be honest, not at all helped along by Crane's tendency to giggle every time his hands slipped or he missed what he was aiming for. Finally he heard the lock click and stepped back. "It's unlocked."

"About time." His voice was cocky as ever, but Batman noted his anxious look as he pondered how to get a hand free to open the door. Keeping a finger on the trigger throughout the process, to deter a potential attack, he decided upon transferring the gun to his left hand—which, despite the injury, held it well enough—and holding the scythe with that arm, as he reached behind himself with the right hand and opened the door. He stepped through, eyes leaving Batman's for a moment to glance above the door frame, before taking a few more steps back.

"Enough." Crane stopped and Batman stepped inside quickly, putting a distance between himself and whatever it was his companion had been looking at. He shot a glance to the door, after walking a few feet past what he'd decided he was safely inside. There was an odd contraption of some sort, wired around the door frame. "What is that?"

"Fear toxin," Crane said, his voice making his longing to get his hands on it clear. "It's around all the doors and windows. If an entrance is forced open, it fires. If it's unlocked and then opened, there's no effect."

"Then why haven't your things been thrown out? Surely the landlord has a key."

"She does." He smiled, in a peaceful way that made a shiver run down Bruce's spine. "But she doesn't come up here. She's afraid of this room."

"You poisoned her." It wasn't a question.

"No. I merely made her phobic of my apartment number. She wouldn't even think of coming up here to collect rent or clean the place out, and she's too frightened of it to mention it to her employees."

He stared. "That's revolting."

Crane actually looked offended, for a moment. Then his features went back being quietly condescending, as though the insult had never occurred. "That's brilliant. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make someone phobic of a number? It's not as easy as traumatizing someone while holding up a paper with the number written on it, over and over. It takes talent."

"It takes a sick-minded individual."

"Whatever."

He risked looking away from Crane for another second, around the dim room. From what he could make out, it seemed ordinary, no odd little details to reveal the twisted mind of its tenant. It wasn't like in movies, when the madman had his walls painted in blood or covered with obsessive writing. The only insight it gave him into Crane's life was that he didn't have much money—not that a fugitive usually would—and his taste in furniture was not all that great.

Crane was backing up again and Batman followed him, senses on full alert. They moved through the hallway without incident, Crane not even needing to glance back anymore, until they reached the bedroom. The rest of the apartment had a deserted feel, as if it had never really been _lived _in, just used. The bedroom was different. The bed was made—and Batman noticed the sheets looked like they were made of finer stuff than any of the other furniture—but slightly wrinkled, as though Crane had been lying on top of it the last time he was here, and the shelves were actually occupied. It was strange, seeing a place where the villain lived. It seemed so normal.

"I'm going to get something out of my closet," Crane said, breaking his train of thought. "All right?"

He nodded, watched as the doctor transferred the gun to his left hand again, opened the door. His eyes never left Batman's, who tensed as he reached behind him, and relaxed as Crane only pulled out a suitcase. He sat it on the bed, took the pistol in his good hand again. There was another moment of silence.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

He gritted his teeth. "What's the suitcase for?"

"To put my belongings in, obviously."

"And you're not putting them in why?"

He gave a short laugh. "Right, and leave myself open. You do it."

"What?"

If Crane picked up on the danger in his tone, he didn't show it. "You do it. You can start with the DVDs." He tilted his head toward the shelf.

"You can't be serious."

"I disagree."

"This is ridiculous." He'd driven him across the city and put up with his snide remarks, but this was going too far. "I am not packing for you."

Crane shrugged, lowered the scythe, kicking it under the bed. He kept the gun pressed against his chest. "You don't have to do it alone." He walked backward toward the dresser, pulling open a door and shooting a glance back long enough to grab a few things. "But it'd go faster if you assisted. I'd be out of Gotham and your life that much sooner."

"You're not leaving." Still, he found himself walking over to the shelf. Well, if it established the slightest bit of trust, it could work to his advantage. It likely wouldn't—narcissists expected everyone to do things for them anyway, so it wouldn't be an act of kindness on his part—but there was no harm in trying. And if he relaxed, he might lower the gun.

"Yes, I am. This discussion would be so much more pleasant if you'd accept that."

"I could say the same thing to you." He picked up a stack of DVD cases, blinked in spite of himself. The horror movies he'd expected—high class as Crane always acted, he wasn't shocked to see the zombie movies. _Hello, Dolly! _on the other hand, that he hadn't seen coming. Or _Meet Me in St. Louis. _

"Be careful with those; they're in alphabetical order." Crane stepped away from the suitcase as Batman stepped up, looking confused at his reaction. "What?"

"You're trying to escape Gotham, with me right beside you, after angering the Joker, and you're worried about your movies getting out of order?"

"Yes."

He wasn't sure whether to laugh or shake his head. Given the man's sensitive pride, he went with neither. "You know there's no way you can get away from me long enough to get out of Gotham, don't you? I'm not leaving."

"I'll find a way." His tone suggested that he hadn't yet, and was doing a bad job of trying to hide that fact.

He couldn't keep from shaking his head this time. "If the Joker situation could be taken care of, would you be willing to go back?"

"It can't." He attempted to straighten a stack of shirts with the bad hand, frowning as all he accomplished was making them more uneven.

"If it could."

"No." He went back towards the dresser, keeping Batman's gaze. "Why don't you spend a few weeks in there before you try telling people it's not so bad?"

"Your friends are there. Won't you miss them?"

"Not enough to go back to that place."

"What's that terrible about it?"

"What _isn't_?" He bent down, reemerged with pairs of jeans. "If you're done with the DVDs, you can start on the books."

He did. "Is it the orderlies? Is there abuse going on?"

"What do you think? But beyond that. There's nothing about Arkham that isn't miserable." He kept glancing at Batman, though he wasn't really watching him anymore, so much as checking his position. Bruce wasn't sure if he was being spoken to, or if Crane was just venting aloud. "How would you like having people treat you like you're mad all day long, every day?"

_You are. _"They're trying to help you."

"Don't need it, thank you very much."

He bit back a smart remark. It would get them nowhere. Not that rational conversation was likely to do much either. The insane never realized how disturbed they were, and no amount of logic could sway them. "If everyone around you thinks you're sick, including people who have the same amount of schooling as you do, isn't that a sign that there might be a problem?"

"No. It means everyone else is an idiot."

He felt a migraine coming on. "You can't think that your intellect is superior to _everyone_ else in Gotham."

"I don't think, I know. And why not? Someone has to be the smartest—" He'd been carrying a jacket in his bad hand, and dropped it. Crane knelt down to retrieve it, somehow losing his balance in the process. His other hand went down to steady himself, dropping the gun in the process.

The copy of _'Salem's Lot _Batman had been holding fell from his hands as he dove at Crane.

* * *

AN: I have no idea how one would induce phobia of a number, but it's possible, apparently. I imagine the process wouldn't be too pleasant to watch.

I really love narcissists. Fictional ones, the real life ones are not good. And _'Salem's Lot. _I'm a pretty big Stephen King fan, with a few exceptions.


	17. Liar

AN: I've sent another email to maintenance. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, if you want to get a hold of me, continue to use the email.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Crane fell backwards, pulling his arms up to shield himself. His impact against the floorboards, the gun's clatter against the floor, the Batman's slow dive forward; it all seemed to be in slow motion, or his thoughts were going insanely fast. _He promised he wouldn't jump me if I put the gun down._ He wasn't sure why it surprised him. If there was one thing he'd learned throughout life, it was that people couldn't be trusted. Still, the Batman had always stuck by his misguided set of morals, and Crane was stunned to find that he would break his word.

He closed his eyes, expecting blows to come, force him into submission. They didn't. He felt one hard shove, which sent him rolling to the side, and then nothing. Confused, he opened his eyes, waited for a few seconds. Nothing. He rolled back over, found the Batman picking up the gun.

"Hey!" He dove forward, only to be pushed aside. Effortlessly. "That's mine!"

Batman stared at him, incredulous. In retrospect, it had been a rather stupid thing to say. "You stole it."

There was no arguing with that, so he settled for diving at the gun again.

The Batman didn't even push him aside this time, just held the pistol out of reach. Crane could have killed him. _Damn tall people._ Damn them and their height."You said you wouldn't tackle me if I put it down."

"I didn't tackle you," he said, moving toward the window. "I moved you out of the way so I could pick this up."

_Oh, because the distinction makes so much difference. _"What are you doing?"

"Getting rid of the gun." With his free hand he unhooked the latch keeping the window locked, to avoid setting off the toxin trap.

"You're going to throw a pistol out the window," he said, a sinking feeling spreading throughout him. His choices appeared to be try and stop the Batman by force, and fail miserably, or break the window and set off the toxin, which would also affect him. "A loaded pistol. You really are irresponsible."

"I'm not throwing it, I'm dropping it onto the fire escape." He did, and Crane heard it clatter to the metal below. "I'll get it back when this mess is taken care of."

Crane decided his best option would be to go for the other weapon, and he dropped to the ground, scrambling under the bed. In retrospect, putting the scythe down here had been a bad move. It kept it out of Batman's reach, but it made him go out of his way. The impact was painful, and it felt as though he may have cut himself on a rogue splinter or something, but he ignored it, hands closing around the scythe in desperation. He felt hands close around his ankles, kicked out as hard as he could, to no avail. He was dragged out and flipped over unceremoniously, the Batman's hands leaving his body to take hold of the scythe.

"Let it go."

"_No_." The force of the Bat's pulls shook him violently, but he held on with strength he hadn't known was capable anymore. Possibly it was fueled by anger. He could not _stand _to be touched, and Batman knew that. For someone who was so supposed to be concerned for his wellbeing, the man had a funny way of showing it. "It's the only thing standing between me and Arkham."

The scythe nearly slipped out of his injured hand with the next tug, and he forced his hand to tighten, past its limited mobility. In the surrounding area—he couldn't feel anything at the site of the wound—there was a dull burn and a wet sensation which could only be blood. A look at the bandages, slowly shifting from white to pink to red, confirmed it. He'd reopened the stitches again. Fantastic. Just another thing to take care of, whenever he got out of this situation. _If _he got out of this situation. No, he couldn't think like that. He was going to get out. He had to.

The Batman took note of the blood and stopped. "You're bleeding."

_As if you care. _"Your fault."

"Stop fighting me. You're only hurting yourself."

He was _so _sick of people acting as if he was the one being irrational, and was barely able to suppress the urge to spit in Batman's face. If he got punched in retaliation, he was sure he'd let go. "I'm saving my life."

"Give me the scythe," he said, in that reasonable tone. As if he was being the mature one. As if a man dressed as a bat was _capable_ of being the mature one.

"No! It's my damn scythe." It was an absolutely childish response, he knew, and he found that he didn't care. The situation was idiotic enough that he might as well descend to its level.

A sigh. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to let anyone else hurt you, if I can prevent it. Would you calm down?"

"Oddly enough, I'm having a bit of trouble doing at the moment." He tried sitting up unexpectedly, as he'd done the last time they'd fought, when he'd bitten the Batman's face, but this time the vigilante was expecting it and took one hand off the scythe, pushing him back down against the floor. "Let _go._"

"If I let go, you're going to try that again. Or try slashing me. Calm down."

Calm down? Calm down, while he was being pinned to the floor? While someone else's hand was on him? _You stupid son of a bitch. _He couldn't have, even if he wanted to. Which he didn't, anything that would complicate things for the Batman was a good thing in his book. And he was not about to lie still while being held down. His mind associated touching with exactly one thing: hurt, because that's what being touched always led to, unless it was one of his friends from Arkham doing the touching. And while the Batman belonged at Arkham, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he did not come close to fitting in that category. "_Let go._"

"Listen, I'm not going to hurt you." His eyes had that piteous look Crane hated so much. "Don't be afraid."

How _dare _he deem himself able to ascertain Crane's moods? How dare he presume to think he knew anything about him? And how dare he decide that he was capable of frightening the master of fear? The fact that he did was insignificant, the fact that he assumed he did was infuriating. "I am _not _afraid of you. I'm _not_."

"You're shaking."

"I'm _always_ shaking. It's called tardive dyskensia, you idiot." He wasn't sure if that's what it was, actually, but close enough.

"What is that?" His tone implied that he didn't care about the definition so much as he cared about keeping a conversation. As if he could get on Crane's good side that way. He couldn't get on Crane's good side at all. Once he got out of Gotham, Crane was going to return exactly once, with a new improved toxin that he'd shove down the Batman's throat. And then film the results, so he could watch the man's humiliation as often as he wanted.

"Involuntary, repetitive body movement that serves no purpose. It's sometimes a side effect of antipsychotics."

"That's what's wrong with you?"

He didn't answer. He didn't know if it was tardive dyskinesia. He hoped it wasn't, because that was often permanent, even if the afflicted went off the pills. "And I am _not _afraid of you."

"Fine." Both of them knew he didn't believe it. "Here."

"Here wha—" Crane began, before the hand on his shoulder moved around to his back, hauling him up. "Get off!" He struggled to no effect, partially because he couldn't pull away without letting go of the scythe, which he was unwilling to do.

"Relax." He found himself half-walked, half-dragged across the room, before the bed was underneath him, Batman's hands back on the scythe handle. "There. I'm off. Happy?"

"Hardly." Having the Bat off him was a comfort, yes, but about as comforting as one bucket of water against the blazes of hell. From his position on the bed, he was blocked from both the door and the window, unable to run even if he let go of the scythe. Trapped on a bed with the Batman was certainly not cause for happiness. It was better than being trapped somewhere with the Joker, or back at the asylum, but other than that, anything seemed preferable. "Well?"

"What?"

"You've got the upper hand here. Why don't you just throw me into your Batmobile—"

"It isn't called a Batmobile."

"—into your whatever, and drag me back to the asylum?"

"Because I think you'd have a heart attack if I tried that. And because I'd prefer it if you agreed to come back on your own."

It was amazing, given his current emotional turmoil, that he was able to laugh at that. But he did, if only for a second and without humor. "As if that's going to happen."

"It could." He sounded so serious, so sure of himself that Crane couldn't help but laugh again.

"No, it couldn't. I would never agree to go back there of my own free will. If you think otherwise, you're mad. Not," he added, eyes flickering over the other's attire, "that you weren't obviously out of touch to begin with."

"You did before."

There was that slap in the face feeling again. "What?" His voice betrayed his uncertainty and he hated himself for it.

"The last time I brought you back to the hospital. When I picked you up to carry you. You said, 'put me down, I'll go back.'" He spoke slowly, as if talking to a child, an expression under the mask that looked almost like concern but couldn't be. Because people like him didn't feel concern for people like Crane. "That was only two weeks ago. You don't remember?"

The thing about being on fear toxin—or being affected by the brain damage it caused—was that everything seemed to run together. It was all horrifying, but once everything was horrifying, it was hard for anything in particular to stand out. While still under the effects, events were unique, each vivid and terrifying. Once the medication started to kick back in, things became harder to remember. And he definitely did not remember _that._

"Liar."

"I'm not lying."

"Yes, you are, because there's no way in hell that happened." How stupid did Batman think he was, to try and tell him that? "If you want me back in Arkham, just take me there, don't insult me by telling me lies and expecting me to believe them."

"I'm _not _lying." This time he sounded offended. "Why would I make that up?"

"I don't know. Because you think if you can trick me into believing that I let you take me back last time, I'll do it now, maybe? And by the way, that's not going to happen. You're the one fabricating it, you tell me."

"For God's sake. I'm not lying , you paranoid—"

"Again with the paranoid." He rolled his eyes, tightened his grip on the scythe. "That's always your answer, isn't it, to accuse me of being paranoid or crazy or something, instead of actually answering the question? Are your argumentative skills that poor, or would you just prefer not to take the effort to make an intelligent response?"

"It's not an accusation. You're being paranoid."

"Prove it, then. Prove that I said I'd go back."

Batman shook his head. "There's no way to prove that, and you know it. But you said it. You were hallucinating at the time. It's likely you wouldn't remember, but that doesn't make it a fabrication."

_Don't talk to me as if you understand things. You don't. _"You've lied before. About the gun thing. Why should I believe you now?"

"That wasn't a lie. I said I wouldn't tackle you, and I didn't. Look, if I was going to make up a story to placate you, don't you think I'd say something you'd have an easier time believing?"

"You _have _to be lying." He wouldn't have done that. He couldn't have done it. Agreeing to go back to Arkham would be admitting he had a problem. Which he didn't. And even when out of his mind, he wouldn't admit to that. He knew he wouldn't.

"Why, because part of you recognized that you need help?"

How did he _do _that? He had this inhuman ability to find the one thing a person was uncertain or worried about and hammer on it. Not that Crane was uncertain on that point. There was no way that had happened. "Tell me, Batman, why do you fight crime?"

"What?" He seemed taken aback by the abrupt shift in discussion. "To protect the city."

"That's not it. I know why you glide around with your grappling guns and your tank and your antitoxins. That part's easy. It's to show off. But why choose crime in the first place? Surely there's less life threatening ways for a spoiled little brat to get attention."

"To help people."

He shook his head. "That's not it. You're out every night, if the sightings are to be believed. You're _obsessed. _And an obsession like that doesn't occur for no reason."

"Crane—"

Ah, he was hitting a nerve. He smiled. "You've had personal experience with the criminal world, haven't you? Some past trauma. Something where you _failed. _You failed to act when it was needed, and all of this is a sad attempt at repentance, to redeem yourself after failing in the past. What happened, did you let someone get hur—"

"Enough." It was only one word, but it was enough to wipe the grin from Crane's face, make him shudder. Definitely enough to convince him not to keep going. "If you don't want to go back to Arkham willingly, I'll take you back anyway. I wanted to make this as easy as possible, but if you're going to sit there and try to get under my skin, we'll go now."

"Struck a nerve, did I?" He couldn't help but say it, and flinched, steeling himself for a blow that didn't come.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" But he hadn't said no, and that made Crane marginally happier. "If you were hoping your ranting would make me break down, sorry to disappoint. I've heard better."

And the happiness was gone, with that dig. Now he was questioning Crane's observational and analyzing skills, the bastard. "I'm a psychiatrist."

"Not anymore."

_Son of a bitch._ "I'm not going back."

Another sigh. "Yes, you are, and saying you're not isn't going to change it."

"I don't want to." Even to his own ears, it sounded sulky.

"I don't care. You need to, even if you won't admit it."

"I'm fine."

"You're sick."

"I'm _fine._" He gave another tug on the scythe handle, his left hand sliding off, thanks to the blood. Great.

"You're very sick. Pretending you aren't doesn't change the fact that you need help." He brushed Crane's hand away when he tried to take the scythe again, then pulled the weapon away from the other, sat it on the opposite end of the bed. "And we're going back."

"No." He shuffled backwards until he hit the headboard, hugging his knees to his chest as if it would offer some form of protection. "I can't."

"You'll be all right. They're not going to let you get—"

"I can't," he repeated. He felt something inside him give, and found himself talking, unable to stop. "If I go back, the Joker will break out and slice my face open and any other number of horrible things until I'm begging for death, and then some, until he either kills me in the worst way possible or my heart fails. And then I'll be dead and everything I've done will be for nothing and I'll never have accomplished anything and all my research will either end up lost or being used as some police officer's coaster."

For a moment the Batman stared at him. And then broke out laughing.

He wanted to slap him. But he wasn't about to try, Batman laughing was one of the most disturbing things he'd ever seen. "What? Why is my safety funny, Mr. Selfless Crusader?"

"It's not," he managed, before laughing again. "The fact that you finished that speech with something as trivial as a file being used as a coaster is."

"Actually, and I, uh, never thought I'd say this, but I'm inclined to agree with Jonny here."

At the sound of the voice both Crane and the Batman snapped to attention, turning toward the doorway. Where the Joker stood, in full costume and makeup, the pistol from the fire escape in one hand and a flamethrower strapped to his back. "I don't find it funny at all."

* * *

AN: How exactly Joker managed to find them or sneak in without the World's Greatest Detective noticing will be addressed next chapter.

Thanks to GreyLiliy for the line "No! It's my damn scythe."


	18. Throwing Down the Gauntlet

AN: PMs and alerts still aren't working. So you all know the drill; use the email if you want to contact me.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Harley was going to be sick.

She leaned her elbows against the table, taking another sip from her milkshake before giving up and taking her mouth off the straw. She wasn't hungry or thirsty to begin with, and the thing tasted like death. Icy, creamy death. Who'd come up with ginger milkshakes? The idea was an abomination against the concept of frozen foods.

She'd been drinking it to try and settle her stomach, because ginger was supposed to have that effect, and it looked as if they'd be stuck in this ice cream shop for a while, thanks to Edward. And to think he'd lectured her for wasting time back when they were getting clothes. Upon realizing Pam's plan to hunt down Jonathan was to go through every apartment complex in the Narrows, room by room, he'd demanded they stop the car to go get milkshakes. Why, Harley wasn't quite sure. It had something to do with the fact that Jonathan liked milkshakes and to figure out where Jonathan was he'd have to get into his mindset, and a long, mumbled explanation she'd hadn't caught all of as he got out of the car.

She raised her head, bangs hanging in her eyes, to watch as Edward pace around the floor, looking displeased with each drink he took from his butterscotch milkshake. Edward hated butterscotch, but apparently it was one of Jonathan's favorites and it was imperative to do things his way. He was pacing in a very Jonathan-reminiscent matter, she had to give him that. She had no idea how it would help things in the least, but it was a good imitation.

Another wave of nausea hit her and she put her head on the cold surface of the table, suppressing a moan.

Across the booth there was the sound of someone sitting down. "It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry."

Harley looked up again, wincing against the sun from the opposite window. "Hello, Jervis." He sat across from her, flipping a cell phone open and closed, over and over. They'd found the cell phone in the car's glove compartment, along with the cash they'd used to pay for the drinks. _Oh, I'm not in the Lewis Carroll mood. _She'd never even read the books, only seen the Disney film.

"If you drink much from a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later."

For a moment she had no idea what he was talking about, until she noted the concerned expression on his face. "It's not the shake. I'm just…worried."

Worried hardly covered it. She had the same concern for Jonathan's well-being as the others, and then some. Everyone had seen the aftermath of the Joker's attack on him, only she'd seen it happen. And still couldn't help but shudder every time she remembered it, as if it hadn't been four months ago, but four minutes. She no longer felt anger at Jonathan for betraying her, partly because the Joker'd assured her that it meant nothing, and partly because she couldn't bring herself to be angry at him, not after how he'd suffered. And when the Joker got out and found him—which she knew he would—it was going to be awful.

_Jonathan, why did you have to run? _Awful couldn't begin to describe what the Joker would do now, when he caught him. He should have stayed at Arkham. He would have been hurt, yes, hurt badly, but she knew from experience that was better than trying to avoid it. Running was like waving a red flag to the Joker. The more desperate one was to get away, the worse the retaliation would be. And she didn't want Jonathan to suffer anymore, even if he had betrayed her. He was her first real friend at Arkham, and she loved him too much to see him go through that. _If he gets hurt, I don't know what I'll do. I really don't. _She loved the Joker more than life itself, but if he killed Jonathan…she didn't know how she could ever forgive that.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," Jervis said, though his tone was gentle, and he put the phone down on the table and placed his hand on hers. "A great girl like you, to go on crying in this way!"

Harley blinked. She wasn't sure, but judging from the tone she expected that was his way of saying 'cheer up.' It was touching, though it did little to abate her anxiety. "Thanks."

He opened his mouth to respond, only to be interrupted by Edward, who'd stopped mid-pace, slamming his free hand onto their table. "I've got it!"

Harley jumped.

"Got what?" Pam demanded, whipping her head in their direction, hair spinning out behind her.

"Where Jonathan's at, of course. Come on, let's go."

_I will never understand how he does that, _Harley reflected, as she stood, feeling sick as ever.

* * *

As far as the Joker's schemes went, this wasn't quite as bad as the time he'd rigged the ferries to blow, at least not hypothetically. There, there had been a huge chance of mass, indiscriminate death. And even if he atoned for all his previous transgressions and spent the rest of his life helpful as a saint, Bruce would never forgive him for what he'd done to Rachel and Harvey.

Still, it was hard to reflect on those crimes when he was standing there, over a psychotic in the middle of a panic attack, as they were both threatened by the Joker with a flamethrower. At the moment, this was easily viewed as the worst of his plans.

"How did you know we were here?" He shifted slightly, blocking Crane from the Joker's line of fire. The one good thing about the clown was that his obsession with Batman was easily exploited; he doubted Joker would fire directly at him. Which not only gave him the opportunity to keep them from going up like a matchbox, but to keep his promise to Crane. If they lived through this, he'd need to be on the doctor's good side, or he had the feeling he'd suffer long and hard for getting them into this position in the first place.

"Funny thing about that," the Joker said, spinning the pistol in his fingers. "I was actually expecting to have a hard time tracking down the little whore—"

From behind him, Crane moaned softly.

"But it would seem luck was on my side. All I had to do was call up my men, so I could tell 'em to set up a perimeter, you know, keep any strawmen from leaving town, and before I could get a word in they told me the Batman's car's just sitting in the Narrows." He smirked. "Really, didya think anybody _wouldn't _notice that? I think some kids have even tagged it by now. _Any_way, I got down here, thinking I'd have to, uh, search every surrounding building room by room, and lo and behold—" He held up the gun. "This drops out of the sky. I think you're losing your touch, Batsy. You might as well as put the Bat signal in the window. I mean, you didn't even lock the door."

_Hell. _So that's how he'd gotten in without setting off the traps or being heard. "And you have a flamethrower." Why in God's name were those legal for civilians to possess? Not that the Joker would have gotten it through legal means.

He nodded enthusiastically, like a dog. "Yeah. Because you have a scarecrow, see?"

Beside him Jonathan Crane pulled a sheet over his face and retched into it. He reemerged, face whiter than Bruce would have thought humanly possible and hyperventilating. So he'd been absolutely right about the 'Arkham not being safe to return to' thing. Wonderful.

"If you set that off in here, you'll kill everyone. Yourself included." He wondered if he could throw a Batarang before Joker could fire the gun or flamethrower in retaliation. One hit to the head could take him down, but in an enclosed space like this, a stream of fire would do catastrophic damage, if not kill them outright.

"Thought of that, Bats. I'm not a complete idiot." He pointed behind Batman, to Crane's huddled form on the bed. "I'll be taking him outside before the fun starts."

"You're not touching him."

The Joker pouted, and if there was any genuine hurt in the expression, Bruce couldn't see it. "Why not? You already had _your _fun with him." He paused for a moment, tensing as his expression dropped, scars turning down. "Tell me, what did he do to make you laugh? I heard the last part, but I didn't get it, and uh, frankly I'm having a hard time figuring out what Jonny could do to amuse anything. I mean, he's got all the humor of a corpse."

Bruce could only stare. Was he _jealous? _Of all the insane…of all the pathetic…there were just no words for it. It was bad enough that he was caught in the middle of this psychotic feud; the fact that the fighting itself seemed to be over _his _attention was the icing on the cake. "Put down the weapons and I'll tell you."

"Yeah, sorry but no. Like I said, I'm not an idiot."

_That's one interpretation. _The entire idea was so idiotic and childish he wanted to say something about it. But that would only provoke the Joker further. "Then you're not going to find out."

"Fine," he said, pouting again. "I'll get Jonny to tell me on the way out of doors."

"You're not getting near him."

"I disagree. Hey, Jonny." The Joker actually snapped the fingers of his free hand, as one would call a dog. "C'mere. I might do this faster if you cooperate."

So it would come down to a fight. Of course. As always. He slipped into a defensive stance, trying to decipher the best way to take down the clown without signing all their death warrants. "I'm giving you one last chance to—"

"Enough."

Batman stopped mid-word, turning. Jonathan Crane had slipped off the bed, standing up, the scythe in his hands. "Enough," he repeated, eyes focused on the Joker with a defeated, near dead look. "You want to kill me? Fine. But you'll have to earn it first."

* * *

He hadn't been sure what the Batman and the Joker had said to each other. After his mind had registered that the Joker was in the doorway and that, given Batman's reaction, this wasn't a hallucination, his reasoning capabilities shut down for a while. All he knew was that his two greatest enemies were in the same room, and that whatever happened, he was going to be hurt, badly.

It wasn't until he thought his heart would give out from beating so quickly that Scarecrow had emerged. _Jonathan, we've got to do something._

_What, kill ourselves?_ His eyes flicked to the scythe on the bed, long forgotten by the Bat, before he registered that the Joker had said something about burning him alive and was unable to hold back the bile rising in his throat. Once he'd finished gagging, Scarecrow spoke again.

_If it comes down to that, yes. But I've got an idea._

Now here he was, holding the blade of the scythe to his throat to keep the Batman from advancing. It was eerily similar to the time Joker had done this to him in Arkham, and the thought of that night sent a shiver through his body, metal pushing into his skin.

"Earn it?" Joker repeated, rolling the words around on his tongue. "And, uh, how do you propose I do that, Jonny?"

"Living room. I'd rather not discuss this in a place that reeks of vomit."

"And whose fault is that?" Still, he stepped out of the room, swinging the pistol again.

"Crane—"

He turned to the Batman, pushing harder on the metal and feeling blood on his neck. "Living room. Now." He did so, Crane following close behind.

"I propose that you and I play a game," he said to the Joker, as he stepped through the door, the pair regarding him in confusion.

The clown's eyes lit up. "What kinda game?"

"A game to decide my fate. If I win, I leave and you never bother me again. If you win, I'll let you kill me without struggle—_provided,_" he added, "that you either shoot me or slit my throat. I'm not going to stand there and take a burning."

Batman made a sound that was doubtless the start of a protest. Joker pointed the gun in his direction. "And how does this game work?"

Crane noted his position, took a few steps back toward the center of the room. He didn't need Scarecrow to explain the rules to him, he understood. There really was no Scarecrow at this moment, nor a Jonathan, the events had merged them. "At this moment, I'm an equal distance between you and the door. Six or seven steps, give or take."

"And?" His voice sounded impatient, but his eyes were still sparkling.

"You try and guess something about me, at this moment. It can't be about something that happened months ago. It has to be now. For every guess you get right, I step toward you. For each incorrect one, I step toward the door. If I get to the door first, I go and you leave me alone. If I get to you first, you kill me."

Joker laughed.

"That's suicide." The Batman ventured another step forward, Crane held up the scythe in defense. He knew how to use it, growing up a farm boy, and he knew it could be an effective weapon as long as he didn't let the Bat get hold of it. Batman seemed to realize this as well, or remember the Joker's gun. Either way, he stopped.

"I know that," he said quietly, eyes not leaving the Joker. But they didn't have many alternatives. What was he supposed to do, let the pair fight it out? Flamethrower plus closed apartment plus violence equaled death, and even if the Batman won, he'd just bring him back to Arkham where he'd be killed. It was either freedom or death, and this way, the death could be on his terms, relatively short and painless.

And anyway, the Joker didn't know him. Not truly. He pretended to sympathize with people, but he didn't really know. There was a chance the Joker would fail, and he was going to take it. "Do you accept?"

"You really have lost it." There was pride in the Joker's voice, at the madness he thought he'd caused. But this wasn't madness. It was his only hope. "Yeah, I'll accept."

* * *

"Wait." Batman tried stepping forward again, and the Joker, smirking, pointed the gun at his head. There was no way he could miss at this range, and Bats knew it. Not that he particularly wanted to splatter the wall with Bat brains—though it'd be a marked improvement over the wallpaper—but the game Jonny had proposed sounded ridiculously entertaining.

"Don't interrupt, Batsy." He shot a glance to Jonathan, giggled. The silly little narcissist honestly believed he didn't wear his heart and thoughts on his sleeve. As if he was above it somehow, as if Joker wouldn't be able to read him like a book. This was just too good. It was even better than seeing the gun fall onto the fire escape. What were the odds that Jonny's little nervous breakdown would play right into his hands like this?

"I'm not interrupting." Joker heard him swallow, as if unsure. He didn't like that. His Batman should always be sure, unless he was the one causing the uncertainty. "I'm playing too."

Joker stared, and sensed Jonathan was doing the same without looking. "What?"

"I'm playing. And if he gets to me before he gets to you or the door, you're both going back to Arkham and you're leaving him alone. Got it?"

Oh, how deliciously _thick _his friend could be. As if beating Crane into submission every once and a while gave him anywhere near the insight Joker had. There were some things you learned about a guy from fingering him that you simply couldn't learn by mere fistfights. "Yeah, I'm fine with that. Jonny?"

"Why not?" His voice was flat again. It seemed he'd stopped caring about his survival. _Fantastic. _Joker couldn't keep from giggling again. He knew he'd broken Crane, but he hadn't known he'd done it so well. _Don't know my own strength._

The interesting thing about Saint Lucia was that there were two stories regarding how she'd lost her eyes. One was fairly straightforward; she'd lost them when she was martyred. Lucia called off a marriage to a rich nobleman, determined to stay chaste for the Lord. Her would be husband had reported her as a Christian to the emperor, and she was to be put to death. When the guards came to take her away, she was so filled with the Holy Spirit that even a team of oxen couldn't move her, as resilient the Joker was sure his beloved Batman would be. They tore out her eyes but she could still see, and stabbed her in the throat but she could still talk.

The other story regarding Lucia's lost eyes was his favorite, however. It started much like the first; she'd wanted to remain a virgin and had many rich suitors interested in her. This story, however, took a turn for the macabre a bit earlier, when Lucia had a particularly insistent suitor who'd fallen for her based on her beautiful eyes. So Lucia, to be left in peace, had torn her eyes out and sent them to him as a gift.

Joker loved that story. He'd thought about it once, in Arkham, regarding whether or not he wanted to rip Jonny's eyes out or not. But he'd never expected Jonathan to actually offer his eyes up. Or his life. That was just a thousand times better. This was going to be _so _much fun.

"All right then, let's get this show on the road."

* * *

AN: As always, Tetch's dialogue is from Lewis Carroll. I love Lewis Carroll. The fact that he (as well as JM Barrie) might have been asexual also gives him a million awesome points.

No, I didn't make up the second Saint Lucia story. That's an actual version of how she lost her eyes.

Jonathan's game is modified by one played by Malcolm and Cole in _The Sixth Sense_, when Malcolm's trying to get Cole to sit down and talk to him for the first time. It's the only Shyamalan movie that doesn't make me want to hurt things. Though it's still ripped off, like all his movies. From an _Are You Afraid of the Dark _episode, no less.


	19. Recollections

AN: So the alert stuff still isn't working, contact me by email if you need me. I'm not even sure why I bother to type that at this point.

In other news, I've had Caramelldansen in my head for like a day now, and it really doesn't help that I found an icon of Bats and Mr. J doing the dance. Now I'm wondering why someone hasn't animated Doctor Crane flailing around doing rabbit ears with the other guys. This is why I shouldn't have the Internet, people. This is why we can't have nice things. (If you don't know what Caramelldansen is, Youtube it. Then imagine Batman and the Joker doing that.)

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Crane shot a glance back to the door. Seven steps, about, if he was guessing right. An equal seven steps between all of the choices. Seven steps to freedom, seven steps to imprisonment, seven steps to death. It couldn't be that hard, could it, to get seven faulty assumptions? They didn't know him, not really. Certainly not the Batman, who pretended to understand when things couldn't be plainer that he didn't, and not the Joker either. The Joker had only pretended to understand so he could use him, much like Ra's al Ghul. He didn't know how things truly were.

He couldn't. Because if he did, Crane was dead. And while he'd accepted that death was a very real possibility, gotten to the point where he really didn't mind it, that didn't make the thought of death at the clown's hands any less frightening. What incentive was there for the Joker to keep his word, if he won? This had probably been a terrible idea.

"So, do you wanna go first, Bats, or should I?" In sharp contrast to the stature of the other men, Joker stood casually, waving the gun in his hand back and forth slightly, as if bored. His other hand slid into his coat for a moment, reemerged with a straight razor. Crane didn't even want to know why he carried a straight razor.

"What is that?" Apparently the Batman did.

"A ra_zor._" He didn't add "idiot," to the end, but his tone strongly implied it. "For when I win, see? 'Cause Jonny said no flamethrowers and a gun isn't any fun at all."

"Then why are you pointing the pistol at me?"

Crane glanced at the mask's eyeholes, saw Batman's eyes shifting, no doubt taking in everything about the Joker, any weakness he could exploit. Constantly looking for an alternate method. Not that it would help much here. The Joker wanted to play the game and nothing Batman did could stop him from having his fun. He wasn't sure that Joker would respect the rules should he lose, but it was his best shot.

In a way, he understood the desire for things to continue. He was still holding the scythe painfully tight, and the Batman would be cut if he tried anything. If the blade could cut the armor. Crane was sick of all the running, the hiding like a frightened child. He wanted this over, even if it ended with a razor to the throat.

"In case you decide to interfere with the progress of the game," Joker said. "As in, when I win. All right, I'll go first." He turned his head in a manner Crane imagined let his watch the Batman in his peripheral vision, smirked.

The clown's smile made him want to faint. He forced himself not to shiver—at least, not more than usual—and looked back with what he hoped was a steady, calm gaze. "Go ahead." _Don't panic. Don't let anything slip. He doesn't know you. Not really._

"'Kay." He paused, sucking on the scars from the inside.

"Well?"

"Er…you don't think I have any real insight into your life, that I only pretended to sympathize with you to get you on my good side." He ran his tongue over his lips, continued. "That's why you chose this game. You were banking on the idea that I wouldn't understand you."

_Oh, fuck. _The chance of death just became about fifty percent more likely. Silent, he stepped forward, noticing that the Batman tensed as he did so. Six steps left, or eight, to get out.

Joker stopped waving the gun, and the Batman, judging by the way he tensed again, got the message. He didn't try anything.

"Guess you're not so unreadable, huh princess?" He giggled, didn't wait for a response that they both knew wasn't coming. Because he was right, and that made Crane tempted to give up here and now. "Your turn, Batsy."

He felt the Batman's eyes on him without looking away from the Joker. "You don't want to die."

He almost smiled as he stepped back, making eye contact with Batman for the first time since the game had begun. Thank God for heroes who thought they understood. He took in the Bat's expression, which looked stunned from what he could see, and did smile, slightly. "I can't bring myself to care anymore," he explained, to deter protest. "I'd like to get out, yes, but I'm sick of the struggle."

"But you don't want it to hurt."

_Damn it,_ he thought, almost halfheartedly, as he took a step. Once again, eight to freedom, six to death. The Joker smirked, flicked the razor open, running his thumb lightly over the edge. Crane wondered where he'd stick the blade, if he won. And whether he'd follow the agreement and make it fast.

He doubted it.

The Batman's eyes were on him again, taking everything in. He'd come to expect it from the Joker, but now he felt oddly exposed. With the threat of death looming over him, it shouldn't have been an issue, yet it was. "You're hurting yourself by holding the scythe that tightly," he said, after what seemed like an eternity. "But you can't let it go, not because you're afraid I'll stop this, but because it's the only thing giving you a sense of security."

Crane considered it. He hadn't thought about it, but the feel of the scythe in his hands, blood and ache aside, was comforting. Heart sinking, he took a step. Five to go, either to the Batman or the Joker. Nine to freedom, which was starting to look far away.

"Not that the scythe's gonna do you a lot of good," the Joker said, amusing himself for a moment by watching the overhead light reflect from the razor and onto the wall. Crane and the Batman watched, waiting. He found himself drawn in by the light as well. Watching it mindlessly was far better than the situation at hand, but though it didn't get him any closer to death, it didn't bring him any closer to safety either.

"Joker," he said after a while, the very word hurting to say. It brought up all sorts of unpleasant memories and worse, pleasant ones. It wasn't the abuse that hurt, not as much as the betrayal. Though both were agonizing.

"You're afraid that I'll break my word if I win," he said automatically, not even needing to think about it. "Make it slow and painful."

Shaking a little more than could be explained by side effects, he nodded. Stepped forward again. Ten away from the door. It might as well be ten thousand.

"I won't." His voice was quiet, almost gentle. It was the same way he always spoke when he was trying to get on Crane's good side, and Jonathan knew that. But he still felt the urge to believe that, and it disgusted him. _I really am pathetic. I don't deserve to get out of here._

His self-loathing was interrupted by the Joker's voice. "Hey, Jonny?"

"Yes?" He felt uneasy, doubting he wanted to know what the Joker was interrupting the game for.

"Can I have your eyes, when you're dead?"

Well, there went any thought of believing him, right out the window. "_No._"

The scar tissue closest to his mouth turned down. The way the scars moved slightly in accordance with his expressions reminded Crane of a cartoon's exaggerated features. Like a smiley face from hell. "Why not? You're not gonna need 'em."

Fighting the urge to be sick or shout, either was equally tempted, he glanced toward the Batman. "Your turn, isn't it?"

Batman, who'd been watching the Joker with similar disgust, turned back to him. He looked him over again and Crane was shocked to find that even in this situation, it made him more uncomfortable than almost anything everything else about the situation. It just didn't make _sense_. Why was the Batman taking part in this game? Why hadn't he just taken the scythe again and beaten the Joker into submission?

For that matter, why had he driven him out here in the first place? Crane hadn't thought about it at the time, but back in the Batmobile, and even before that, he was sure he'd slipped and left himself open more than once. Why hadn't the Batman taken the gun and driven him back to Arkham? If he'd avoided fights to keep from hurting Crane, why was he making correct guesses? If he wanted Crane to get out of this alive, he should be helping him toward the door, not bringing him closer to the Joker with each turn. He could always hunt Crane down later; he'd never had a problem with that.

He remembered Batman's words, about wanting to take him back of his own accord. But that had been a lie to placate him. He didn't care; someone like the Batman couldn't really care about someone like him. Whatever game he was playing, Crane didn't like it. He almost preferred the Joker, who at least wore his intentions like a badge of honor, letting everyone know what he was up to.

"You don't want me to win." Lost in his own thoughts, Batman's sudden words nearly made him jump. "You want to leave and you've accepted that you could die, but you don't want to go back to Arkham. You're afraid that if you do, he'll kill you there, and slowly."

There it was again, that maddening ability of his to find the thing someone was nervous about and tear it wide open. It made him feel so exposed, so vulnerable that he had to say something as he took a step. "If you understand that," he said, looking away. "You ought to be willing to let me leave Gotham."

"No."

"Then you're signing my death warrant."

"Not if I win."

He shook his head. "Do you think the Joker will care?"

"Hey." The Joker moved as if to step forward, stopped himself. He did, however, raise the gun holding hand, like he was going to fire a warning shot into the ceiling. He didn't need to, having their full attention. "One, I don't like being talked about as if, uh, I'm not here. And two, I'm a man of my word, Jonny."

"Given that your word means whatever you want it to mean and changes every few seconds or so, that's not very reassuring."

He rolled his eyes. "If I weren't about to kill you, I'd be on Batsy's side about heading back to Arkham. You've got major trust issues, you know that?"

"Maybe I wouldn't, if the person I trusted hadn't broken my ribs and left me for dead."

"You're _still _mad about that?"

He bit his lips to keep from shouting, hard enough to draw blood. "I believe it's your turn."

"Fine, dodge the question." He licked the corners of his mouth, glancing down at Crane's wrists, where, he realized, the scars were visible at the edges of his sleeves. He wanted to pull them back down, but that would involve letting go of the scythe. And the Batman, loathe as he was to admit it, had been right. The scythe was functioning as his security blanket, for the moment. "Uh…you're ashamed of your scars, but not just 'cause they repre_sent_ a loss of control. You're pissed that you let the circumstances get to you enough to lose control at all. Because you're supposed to be _above_ letting past experiences affect you, or uh, you're no better than any other run-of-the-mill psychopath with mommy issues."

He didn't try to deny it. They both knew that would be a lie. Another step forward. Two left, and then he'd be dead. He wasn't sure which surprised him more, the fact that he'd accepted that or the fact that neither of the other players had lost patience at this point and either stopped the game, or shot him. "Batman?"

"You wish you'd never broken out. Because whatever the Joker would have done at Arkham, he'd have been more likely to let you live if you hadn't run away."

Maybe there was a chance of living after all. He wished he could bring himself to be enthused about it, but at the moment, he seemed to have been drained of all emotions, save for resignation and fear. "At least this way, there's a chance of living," he said, stepping back. Three steps to death now. "Had he decided to kill me at Arkham, I'd have had no hope."

"You've done nothing to get the Batman's attention," the Joker said, nodding. Possibly in agreement to Crane's last statement. "At least, not on purpose, you only wanted to get away. So you don't feel that you deserve this sort of retaliation on my part."

"I'd have to be a masochist to think I did deserve it." He stepped forward, back to two steps left. Death was almost a given now. That, or going back to Arkham, which mean the same thing. Even if the Batman's guess was incorrect, he'd still be eleven steps from getting out. And he highly doubted they'd be wrong eleven times in a row.

"You _are _a masochist, kitten. Anybody who lets me touch him is a masochist. It's not that you've _done_ anything to get his attention, it's the fact that you've _got _it that pisses me off. But I digress." He tilted his head toward the Batman, cracking his neck in the process. "Your turn, darling."

"You had trouble leaving Arkham; not because you didn't want to get out, but because you didn't want to hurt your friends."

Crane blinked. How had he _known _that? It wasn't as if he'd ever seen him interact with his friends, aside from when they'd stayed by his side during Joker's attack on Arkham. It was beyond unnerving, his skill at this game. _But, _he reflected, as he took a step, _it also proves that he doesn't care. _He was one step away from the Joker now, and the Joker had yet to get a question wrong. He was dead and they all knew it. If the Batman had really cared, he would have guessed wrong, let the Joker get him one step away, and then made a correct comment so he would win. It figured. He felt more disgust with himself than ever, for believing the Bat might have had real concern.

His eyes caught the Joker, who was grinning broader than ever. What was truly disturbing about it was how _happy _he looked. He seemed honestly amused about the whole thing, not malicious or demented. It should have made Crane shudder, but all he could think about was the time the Joker had given him a rose, how similar his smile had been when Jonathan had accepted his proposition. It made him almost reminiscent of those days, and that twisted Crane's stomach far more than his imminent death did.

"At this moment, you hate me more than you've ever hated anyone in your life."

Crane stared, surprised. He took a step backward and the Joker's mouth fell open.

"No, I don't." He hated him, yes, he hated him beyond his ability to describe. But at the same time, he couldn't completely detest him. It made no sense, given that this man had abused him, both physically and emotionally, poisoned him, dislocated his arm, cut him, gave him a concussion, broke his ribs. Not to mention the betrayal. The Joker should have been absolutely right.

But…he'd also given him one of the best experiences of his life, before the ride had come to a sudden and horrible halt. Looking back, it was all a lie, of course, but that didn't make the memories completely unbearable. The rose, and the first real kiss between them that followed, the fantastic ride home, and the night in the rain a few days later. The Joker's arms around him, his voice singing along with Judy Garland as Dorothy. The Joker coming to his defense when he'd been injured during the convenience store experiment. The kiss on the floor of the bank, and the experience in Gotham General, at least before he knew it'd been caught on tape.

He should have hated him. And most of him did. But part of him couldn't. What's worse, buried somewhere deep, deep inside, a part of him wanted what they'd had back. Even though he knew it was a lie. Even though the fact that he wanted it made him hate himself. He still wanted it, longed for it.

The Joker was still staring, eyes widened in sharp contrast to the black around them. "…Really? You are one messed up kid, you know that?"

He didn't answer, turned to the Batman.

For once he didn't have to think about it. Or he had while Crane was reminiscing. "You want help, but you're afraid to say so."

Well, that was just idiotic. Had he not hammered this point in a thousand times _before _the game began? Maybe he was trying to lose on purpose after all. He didn't need help, and he certainly didn't want it. Honestly, as if saying that now would change his answer in the slightest, as if he'd suddenly—

Crane realized he'd taken a step forward without thinking about it and went cold.

He stared down at his feet, mind unable to process what his eyes were showing him. Swallowing, he glanced up, inadvertently meeting the Batman's gaze. He wanted to look away, but found himself unable. The eye contact was making him feel more exposed than ever, more helpless, among many other unpleasant feelings, but he held it, unsure of why. For a moment it was as if there was nowhere else to look, no apartment, no Joker, just him and the Batman, and no thoughts in his mind but "Why?" Why had he stepped forward? He hadn't wanted to, it made no sense.

"Ah." Just a meaningless sound from the Joker, but it was enough to snap Crane out of it, break the stare. He turned to face the clown, who was nodding, tongue on his lips. "Yeah, I get it. The person you hate most of all is yourself."

There was no denying that. He hated himself for getting into this game to begin with, for letting himself be caught, for revealing this much about himself to the two people he almost hated as badly as himself. He hated himself for wanting the Joker, and most of all, he hated himself for that step forward.

So he took another step, the last one, letting the scythe drop from his hands. The Joker had won, and he didn't even feel fear anymore. Just the resignation, and something that bordered on relief. _At least now it'll be over._ The Joker met his eyes, smiling that same, unsettling ordinary smile, and he didn't try to look away.

There was a sound behind him, he didn't turn his head. The Joker's arm was around him, pulling him to the clown the way he'd used to hug him when they were lovers. The arm connected to the hand holding the gun, which was either still pointed at the Batman or at his own head, he wasn't sure. Wherever it was, the sound stopped.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Bats." The Joker's tone was singsong, but with an undercurrent of steel. "Jonny _said_ I could do this. It was in the rules of the game, and you heard 'em before you agreed, so there's no right to bitch."

"_Let him go_." It was half-growled, half-shouted, and it made Crane shudder harder than ever, hugging onto the Joker without realizing he was doing it. Then he caught himself, disgusted. He tried pulling back, but the Joker had tightened his grip.

"I _will_ let him go, calm down. It'll only be a…" he paused, smacking his lips, as Crane felt the straight razor on his throat. "How long does it take to bleed out from the jugular? Like a minute?" He glanced down at Crane, eyes shifting in thought. "Well, you'll black out after about, uh, three seconds, but I don't know how long it'll take you to die. Either way, you won't feel it."

So he was keeping his word after all. He'd probably desecrate the body beyond belief after that, but he was keeping his word. Crane felt mild surprise and nothing else. "Thank you." He wasn't sure why he said it.

"You're welcome, angel." He met Crane's eyes again, readjusting the razor. Crane could feel his pulse beating against the cold metal edge. "And here we g—"

The metal left his throat as Joker pulled to the side abruptly, dragging Crane with him. The arm holding him jerked, he heard the gun drop to the floor. There were gloves on his shoulders, digging into his skin through the shirt, pulling him away. "Let him _go_."

"_No. _I won, he's mine." The razor came back down, nicking his throat, before one of the Batman's hands left his shoulder, knocking it away while the other continued to pull. Joker jerked back with his own arm, and caught in a tug-of-war between hero and villain, all Crane could think was how childish the Joker sounded. "Look, Batsy, I'm doing it _his _way. If you keep fighting me, Jonny-boy's gonna get really, _really _hurt before he kicks it, and it'll be _your _fault."

"Get your hands _off_—"

There was a hammering sound, and for a moment Crane thought they'd crashed into something. Strange that he didn't feel the impact. And that both Batman and the Joker had stopped. Had they knocked something over? He should have felt the vibrations from that, at least.

The sound again. And this time splintering wood accompanied it. He looked up to find his companions staring off in the same direction, heard the hiss that sounded like fear toxin releasing, and realized someone had broken down the door.


	20. Reunion

AN: PRAISE THE LORD, MY ACCOUNT WORKS AGAIN.

Actually, as it turns out, stupid confession time: I'd somehow blocked the fanfiction sender thing from my email by accident. I am an idiot. But it's fixed now, and you can send me PMs and review replies again.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Jonathan pulled himself from the Joker's arms. There was almost no resistance, and the Batman had already let go, likely to shield himself from any oncoming fear toxin. Not that he needed to. Jonathan had rigged the system so the toxin would be sprayed _out _of the doors and windows, not inward. After all, he didn't want to be affected by something meant to stop attackers.

He heard coughing, spun to face what remained of his front door. It had been ripped off the hinges, splintered around the lock, and through the doorway came a stumbling, choking Pamela Isley, hands rubbing at her eyes as she tripped, falling to the floor.

"Isley!"

He crossed the space between them so quickly he wasn't quite sure if he'd moved, heart racing as he knelt down beside her, far faster than it had been when the razor was against his throat. He had no fear of being affected by the toxin; the trap had also been rigged to only fire for six seconds or so, so that he wouldn't be affected if he had to leave by the same exit. Besides, he'd felt the toxin's effects before. Isley hadn't. And there was no telling how strongly a person would react until they'd been affected.

Some of his experiments had _died._

"Isley!" She was still coughing, unable to answer as she stared up at him. Concern for her safety had shattered all his prior knowledge of the chemical's effects, it seemed, he was unable to remember how long she'd been coughing, or if coughing this long and heavily was a normal reaction. _What if she had a reaction and she's suffocating? _He hadn't been here in over a year; he couldn't recall if there was any antidote stashed somewhere.

"Pam!" Nigma dropped down beside Jonathan, taking her in his arms, and he was too panicked to be shocked by the man's sudden appearance. He saw behind Nigma two other figures, not focusing on them long enough to realize they were Tetch and Harley until they knelt down as well. "Pam, are you okay?"

She gave one last, quiet cough, as though she'd run out of air to give more, and fell silent, shaking stopped.

"_Pam_?"

And then bolted up, eyes glittering with the anger Jonathan was so used to as she slapped him across the face. "You little idiot. What the hell were you thinking, rigging up the door that way?"

The pain was nothing, especially with the knowledge that she was okay. "Isley…I…" And he found that he had no words to express his relief, nothing to do but hug her. "You're okay!" His arms were tight around her, tightest they'd ever been since the first time he'd hugged Harley after she'd turned to crime. She didn't hug back, he noticed, and was pushing against him, nails on his back, but she was safe and nothing mattered but that fact right now.

"Jonathan…Jonathan, I can't _breathe._"

"Oh. Sorry." He leaned back, still grinning from ear to ear. "But you're all right." Then paused, thinking it over. "Why are you all right?" Was that two villains the toxin didn't work on? Maybe this stuff wasn't as effective as he'd thought. Or maybe it became less potent with time.

"The toxin comes from _flowers_, genius. Did you think I hadn't made myself immune to every plant-based poison there is?"

"Oh." Well, that had been stupid of him. Almost as stupid as thinking he could win the whole guessing game of death thing. Still, he couldn't bring himself to be offended, and leaned in again, hugging her more gently this time. "How did you find me?"

"Eddie." She tilted her head back toward Nigma, whose lap she was still resting in. "And don't ask me how he did it; he's the damn Riddler. I've got no idea what's going on in his head half of the time, and frankly, I don't think I want to."

"Thanks, honey." Nigma leaned down, kissed her on the cheek.

"What? I'm serious, no normal person can figure out where someone's at from a _milkshake_, of all things."

"Since when are we normal?"

"Touché."

"But how did you get out?" Jonathan asked, as Nigma slowly shifted Isley out of the way and took her place, hugging Jonathan as tightly as he was able. Joints still stiff from burn damage, and all. It made no sense, the four of them out at once. True, all it took was one inmate out of his cell to release all the others, but security should have been greatly tightened after his breakout was discovered. Bad as Arkham was at preventing singular breakouts, they were generally able to keep more than one from occurring in a twenty-four hour period.

"You can thank Jervis for that," Harley said, sitting down cross-legged beside him, and hugging him when Nigma let go. "He played sick to get a guard into his cell, knocked the guy out, took the pass key, and sprung us all out to find you."

Her arms left and Tetch's took their place, Jonathan turning to face him. "I'm impressed."

"And she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished her sister kissed her, and said, "It _was _a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run to your tea: it's getting late.""

Isley arched a brow. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning 'it's good to see you again,'" Jonathan said, hugging back. "And that I was being foolish."

"You were," Nigma said, though not unkindly.

"Talk about understatements." The anger was back in Isley's eyes; not as fiercely as it had been when she first sat up, but still strong. "Calling your actions stupid is like calling a mountain tall. It's accurate, yes, but it complete underwhelms the comparison."

"It wasn't that—"

Harley's hand was over his mouth. "Yes, it was, Jonny. We were worried sick about you, don't you understand that?"

He let go of Tetch, moved to free himself. "Yes, but I told you not to be. And now you've broken out and ruined your chances of being released. It wasn't worth it, I could have taken care of myself—"

"Yeah right." Isley rolled her eyes. If he wasn't so ecstatic to see them all, it would have annoyed him. As if he couldn't be trusted not to get hurt. Fine, so there'd been that whole 're-captured by the Batman' thing, and the 'almost killed by the Joker' bit, but that was beside the point.

"What do you call _these_, then?" Harley asked, gently brushing her fingers over the cuts on Jonathan's throat.

"I haven't pricked it _yet_," Tetch added. "But I soon shall."

Isley brushed her hair behind her shoulders. "What?"

"He hasn't seriously hurt himself, but he will," Nigma translated, taking her hand.

"Oh. Look, one of you start translating this _before _I ask, okay?"

"I'm _not _going to get hurt," Jonathan protested, moving Harley's hand. "I'm fine."

"You are absolutely not fine."

_Damn it. _He could feel his resolve weakening, the way it had when he was writing the goodbye notes, before he'd left the asylum. He couldn't sit here and listen to this; the more he did, the more likely he was to let himself be talked into thinking that he had a problem, or guilted into going back to Arkham. It really wasn't fair. Of all the villains, he was the only one without some form of psychosis, but the others had decided that they didn't have issues and projected their own onto _him. _

Nice as it was to see them, in a way it was a detriment. If the Joker hadn't been interrupted, things would have been all right. He'd have died, yes, but it wouldn't have been slow or painful, or in a madhouse. Bizarre as it was, the Joker had actually been willing to go through with his request for painlessness, and of all the times for an interference to come, he wished it hadn't been there. He was sick of the chase, the capture, the pain, lather, rinse, repeat. Sick of running, sick of Arkham, sick of life in general.

That didn't make him suicidal, just sensible. That didn't make him sick. But of course they wouldn't see it that way, when they found out what had happened. Just as the Batman surely hadn't seen things when the game began.

"You didn't have to come after me—"

"Idiot," Nigma said, though once again, his tone was gentle. "We didn't come after you because we _had _to. We came because we care about you."

"And yeah, we really did," Isley added, eying the cuts the way she'd stared at his scars last week in the hospital. She reached out, touched the left hand above the bloody bandages. "What do you call that, Jonathan?"

"An accident."

"Ah. I call it 'the reason we're not leaving you alone ever again.'"

He held in a sigh, which took a ridiculous amount of effort. "Look, I—"

"Guys." Harley's hand was over his mouth again. "Please, don't fight. Look, we're all together, and Jonathan's not hurt, okay? We'll have time to sort things out later. Can we just have a minute where we're all happy to see each other?"

"Agreed." Nigma said at once, giving Isley a sterner look than Jonathan would have thought him capable of. Nigma wasn't a coward, he knew that; no one who faced the Batman on a regular basis could be called a coward. Still, he'd always gotten the impression that Isley was the dominant member of the relationship.

She sighed. "Agreed."

"Why not?" Tetch said, with a compliant shrug.

"Fine by me," Jonathan said, once Harley released him. Not that he had any interest in sorting things out later, but as they were on relatively good terms at the moment, he didn't feel it was the time to start questioning things. "And I am happy to see you." Annoyed, yes, but happy. It was touching to know that they cared so much, even if they went about caring in entirely the wrong way.

"The feeling's mutual," Nigma said. "What did you come here for, anyway?"

"Like I'm going to leave Gotham without my books."

Isley giggled, her anger finally seeming to fade. "And your DVDs, right?"

"I…have no idea what you're talking about," he said, flushing.

She rolled her eyes. "Last year. When you were brought in, before you met Harley and they had you drugged beyond reason, you complained that all the TV shows were bad and you wanted your copy of _The Sound of Music_."

_Damn sedatives. _"I have no memory of that. I think you made it up."

"Er…no, Jonathan. I was there too," Nigma said apologetically, averting his eyes.

"Well, even if I said that, I was drugged, so you can't—"

A hand grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him to his feet. He barely had time to register that he was moving before he felt metal against his throat and knew the razor was back again.

"I hate to inter_rupt_," the Joker said, quickly moving in a way that put the other rogues between the Batman and themselves. "But Jonny and I have some unfinished business. So say what you gotta say now, kids, because you're not gonna another chance."

The four responded by standing, all but Harley looking ready for a fight. Jonathan could see this ending in two ways; the Joker slitting his throat, or the Joker accidentally stabbing him through the esophagus as they lunged. _Damn it._

* * *

Shorter chapter this time. Sorry, the next one will be longer.

Tetch's lines are from Lewis Carroll, again.


	21. No Challenge

AN: Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

"Let him go, you son of a bitch."

Joker ran his tongue over the scars, tilting his head towards Isley. "You _sure _you want those to be the last words he hears from you? I mean, not that it doesn't fit you to a _T_, but I was thinking more along the lines of uh, 'goodbye' or something."

Jonathan would never have thought he'd be concerned for the Joker's safety, but the way Isley was glaring at him, the spark of anger in her eyes steadily growing into an inferno, he found himself wondering, for the first time since meeting him, if the Joker would get out of this alive. That Tetch and Nigma looked similarly enraged and worried didn't help matters. Only Harley remained on the sidelines, hands twisting nervously through her hair as though she might start pulling it out.

"Mistah J…please don't hurt hi—"

"Oh, _now _you wanna talk to me." From his position, Jonathan couldn't see the Joker's face, but if his tone was anything to go by, he was not happy. At all. "Know what? If you want me to do favors for you, breaking out without so much as stopping to say hel_lo _is _not _the way to go about it."

Harley looked as if she were about to be sick on the floor. Jonathan didn't particularly care if she was; he'd never been fond of this carpet. The bed sheets, on the other hand, those had been nice. He wished he'd had the sense to vomit on the floor as opposed to the blankets. Oh well.

Once again, he was struck by how absolutely ridiculous his thoughts became when faced with death.

"Puddin', I didn't mean to, that is, I—"

"Harley-girl, you know what would _really _get you on my good side right now? Not interrupting." He readjusted the razor; Jonathan could feel the pulse of his jugular under the blade again. "Look, if everyone's said their goodbyes, then I—"

Jonathan felt a change in the pressure against his throat; first it increased, but only slightly, not enough to cut, and then it left entirely. He blinked, glanced down as much as he could without moving his head, and caught sight of what looked like a black-gloved hand around the Joker's wrist.

"Game's over."

"How do you _do _that?" the Joker asked, sounding more amused than anything, and echoing Jonathan's sentiments exactly. How had he gotten behind them? Jonathan had been focused on his friends' reactions, true, but the sight of the Batman stalking around a room was hard to miss. Had he gone through an air vent or something? Certainly that would explain the lapse in response time.

"Let him go."

"But Bats, Jonny _said _I could do this." He tried flicking his wrist back towards his captive, only to be pulled away again. The Batman's hand tightened and Jonathan could have sworn he heard the bones in Joker's wrist grinding. "You can't just disregard the rules 'cause you lost. It's not fair."

"What is he talking about?" Nigma asked, venturing a step closer. What he hoped to accomplish, Jonathan wasn't sure; Batman may be preventing the Joker from making a killing slice, but the situation was far too delicate to run in trying to free him.

_Oh, hell. _On the off chance he got out of this alive, this was not something he wanted to discuss. He doubted his friends would take it well. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" The Joker laughed in his ear, breath blowing Jonathan's hair slightly. "Agreeing to let me kill you is nothing now?"

_Damn it._

"He wouldn't do that," Isley said, almost automatically, though her eyes darted from the Joker to Jonathan for a second. Oh, they definitely weren't going to take this well.

"_Hate _to break it to you, Red, but not only would he do it, he _did_. But hey, don't take my word for it. You can ask Jonny yourself. Or Bats."

Isley closed her eyes, opened them again while shaking her head, as if determined to push the thought from her mind. Jonathan couldn't help but notice that the others looked less than convinced.

"Jonathan?" Harley's voice was soft, barely audible. She was still wrenching her hair in her hands though she looked less likely to be sick now. "Jonathan, that's not true, is it?"

It hurt, to look at her, to know the reaction telling the truth would cause. "It…it's not like I asked him to kill me, or said all right when he found me. I was trying to—it was that—"

"Told you so," Joker said, singsong.

"Jesus." Nigma's voice, as low and shaken as Harley's had been, and the hurt was worse than ever.

"It wasn't—"

"Let go." The Batman, deep and rasping, making Jonathan go rigid. The pressure of the Joker's arms around him kept loosening slightly, then tightening again. He realized Batman was trying ineffectually to pull the clown off, while the Joker tried to stab him, caught in a tug of war neither could turn the tables of. So pointless. Yet again, no one grasped that the Joker would get his way regardless of all effort to the contrary. No one realized that they were only prolonging the inevitable. If it weren't for his friends' concern, he'd be feeling boredom by this point.

"No. I won."

"I don't care."

The Joker clicked his tongue. "Well, _that's _sportsmanlike. You agreed to the game, Batsy."

"I never said I'd play by the rules."

Honestly, why did he let himself be drawn into these conversations? It seemed to Jonathan that if he was the vigilante, he'd be willing to let go of the Joker's bladeless hand long enough to knock the clown out. That was his problem, listening. Or pretending to listen, anyway, if he really listened they wouldn't be in this fine mess.

"It's what he wants. I'm doing him a _favor._ I try and do a good deed, and this is the thanks I get?"

"This is low, even for you." Disgust radiated from his every word. Jonathan wondered if he honestly expected criminals to care what he thought of their morals.

Joker felt the same way, apparently. "How do you figure that, Bats? In what way is this worse than, I dunno, mass slaughter? Or that little assistant DA that—"

The Batman did something Jonathan couldn't see at the Joker fell silent at once. "You've pushed a man to suicidal levels because you're jealous that he got attention he didn't want to begin with. And you're trying to justify your actions using conversations with the _mental patient _you've driven to the edge. What is _wrong _with you?"

"Nothing."

Jonathan recalled the line he'd given Batman long ago, 'not my diagnosis,' and had to bite his tongue to keep from saying it here. Somehow he doubted the Joker would let it slide as the Bat had, especially given that the clown had just been told off by his obsession for tormenting Jonathan.

"This is beneath even you. I thought you liked a challenge, Joker."

_Lovely, provoke him. I'm sure I won't suffer worse for _that.

"Already had the challenge, darling. You might have missed it, but I won." He tried moving his wrist again, hissed in a way that could have been pain or pleasure when he was unable. "_C'mon_, sweetie, I'm trying to help a friend here."

"How was that a challenge?"

"Come again?" the Joker asked. Jonathan winced. He wasn't sure where this was going, but it sounded like a ripe opportunity for the Batman to give the Joker ideas. And that was the last thing he needed, with the razor by Jonathan's throat and whatnot.

"It wasn't a challenge. You read him like a book, save for the one time. And then you agreed to do things his way with no argument at all. If you consider that a challenge, then whatever passed for your standards has slipped."

The Joker tried pushing his wrist forward again, to no effect. "_Excuse_ me, Bats, but you're missing the bigger picture here. This confrontation wasn't the point. The point is, when I started things with the little scarecrow I intended to push him over the edge. _That _was the challenge, and this game of his proved that it worked so well, I didn't have issue with killing him his way in gra—"

"Of course it worked. You took someone whose mind was fractured to begin with. All you did was make the break wider. That's a challenge to you? If that took effort, you're losing your touch."

_What the hell is he doing? Does he _want _me to be tortured? _Actually, that would explain so much of their current conversation; if the Batman secretly wanted him to suffer and was provoking the Joker into it so he could keep his hands clean. If he wasn't so annoyed at the constant mentions of his being insane, he might have been disgusted. He realized the Joker had gone stiff as a board and closed his eyes, bracing himself for pain sure to come.

It didn't. To his surprise, the sensation of the Joker's arms against him disappeared completely. He opened his eyes, blinking.

"Fine." The clown's tone was flat, slightly annoyed. "Fine. Go on, Jonny."

He didn't move. _He can't seriously be letting me go._

"Come on." Nigma had his hand, gently pulling forward. He let himself be led, still floored with disbelief.

_There's a catch. There's got to be a catch, he wouldn't agree that easily._ He realized Isley was standing before him and almost flinched, expecting a blow, but before he could, her arms were around him again. This time he was the one being held tightly enough to cause suffocation.

"You stupid boy. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," he said, letting himself be held but not hugging back, "that I could beat him and get out of the city." Even to himself, the excuse was weak, and Isley shook her head, hair brushing against his face. She was about an inch taller. Anyway, no one besides the Batman could ever beat the Joker, not unless he wanted to lose. Still, at least the game would have won him a pleasant death, an opportunity surely lost now. That didn't make him suicidal, just sensible. Opposed to being tortured.

It was perfectly understandable. If only he could make everyone else see it that way.

"Happy now?" the Joker asked. Jonathan looked up, to find that the statement hadn't been directed at him, but the Batman, who was still holding the clown's wrists.

"I'll be happy once you're off the streets again."

"Riiiigh_t. _Because Arkham's so wonderful at keeping us in line." The Joker rolled his eyes, giving yet another ineffectual pull against his captor's grip. "I know bats don't have the best vision, dear, but I'm sure by now your _fantastic _observational powers have in fact alerted you that all six of us have broken out. In less than a day. Who's even left at the asylum right now?"

He paused, looking to the other villains, waiting for an answer. None came.

"_God, _you try and kill one little strawman and everyone turns on you. Lemme see." He stopped again, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he thought. "Er…Maxie, Calendar Man, Dr. Destiny, Croc…eh, nobody worth mentioning. The point is, Arkham holds inmates about as well as a cardboard box holds acid. I'll be out in what, three minutes?"

"Not this time."

"Keep telling yourself that, Bats." He shrugged, as much as he could. "If it helps you sleep at night. Personally, I don't mind the constant _têtê-á-têtê_. Makes me feel so _loved._"

On the last word he leaned back, grinding his body against the Batman's. Unsurprisingly, the vigilante pulled away, disgusted, and the Joker used the opportunity to ram backwards into him, sending him crashing against the wall. Jonathan winced, imagining the impact of the flamethrower against the Bat's body. Even through the Kevlar armor, that must be painful. He heard a sharp intake of breath as the Joker wrenched his arms free, backed away, turning to face the Batman.

Batman made no move to stop him, and as the Joker had moved his hands to the igniter and firing triggers of the flamethrower, Jonathan couldn't fault him for that.

"Now. I've got Jonny-boy to deal with, and I trust there won't be any, uh, interruptions this time, Batsy?"

"How," the Batman rasped, still sounding winded, "do you plan to slit his throat while you're threatening me with that?"

"I don't."

Batman responded with a blank look. Jonathan went cold, regardless of Isley's body heat against him, heart hammering. He had a guess that he knew what the Joker meant, and he knew for certain that he wouldn't like it.

"See, what you said about challenge struck a chord with me. I've made far, far too easy for Jonny up 'til now, and I can't have people think I'm going _soft._ So I think I'll go back to the original plan." He moved his hand off the igniter trigger, patting the hose. "And Batsy, unless you want everybody else to go up like a tinderbox as well, I wouldn't interfere when I take this outside."

Isley's hands unwound from Jonathan's body, slowly. He'd become too panicked to notice.

_Not like this. _He'd known, or at least some part of him had, from the moment he'd seen the Joker in the apartment that he'd had no chance. The clown had decided to kill him, and when the Joker wanted something, he got it, no matter what. _But not like this. _

Beggars couldn't be choosers, true, but even so. Of all the ways to go in this world, death by burning was one of the worst. Possibly the worst, for most people, but he'd always thought drowning would be the most miserable. _Damn you Batman. You had to give him ideas, and now it's come to this. I don't want it to be like this. I don't._

The Joker turned, slightly, making sure to keep the Batman in his vision. "So. How about a little fire, Scarecro—"

The word wasn't yet finished on his lips when Nigma, Isley, and Tetch pounced.

The Joker was not a good fighter. He was resourceful, yes, and brilliant with his knife, able to see little openings and weaknesses that others missed. There was no doubt that with preparation and some warning that action was to be required, the Joker could fare incredibly. But when it came to actual fighting, Jonathan had observed, he didn't do it well.

Not that he wasn't a brutal fighter. He was, and if given the slightest chance would play hard and dirty, do whatever it took to win. But he tended to avoid hand-to-hand combat, and there was a reason for that. He was greatly lacking in balance and coordination and tended to spend fights flailing around until he got his hands on a weapon to bludgeon with or someone to throw into the path of his enemies.

Had he forewarning that the three were going to jump on him, Jonathan had no doubt that he'd have been able to come up with some sort of defense. But he didn't have forewarning, and the fact that his hand was off one of the triggers and the Batman tackled him from the other side as soon as he was pushed off balanced didn't help at all. Jonathan watched, shocked to the point of detachment, as the Joker went crashing onto the living room carpet, the others piling on top of him.

"Mistah J!" Harley finally stopped twisting her hands through her hair, making a move as if to run forward to his aid. Jonathan grabbed her about the waist, pulled her back. "Jonathan, they're gonna hurt him!"

_Good. _"No, they won't. And he's got a flamethrower, it's not safe to go over there."

"Not—_ow_—not anymore," Nigma managed. There was a clattering sound, and he saw the flamethrower, fuel tanks rocking slightly against the carpet as it was shoved away. He and Tetch stepped back as Isley remained, fists and nails flying at the Joker's face until the Batman pushed her aside, slightly, and Nigma pulled her away.

Leaving a very unhappy Joker lying face down on the floor, the Batman sitting on top of him, pinning his arms behind his back. If he wasn't so very, very dead as soon as the man got free, Jonathan might have found the situation amusing. It still was, somewhat. Even the Batman appeared to be smiling slightly.

"You know, Bats." Jonathan noticed that there were trails of blood starting down his face from where Isley had scratched him. "If you wanted things to get more in_tima_te, you could have dragged me into the bedroom." He smacked his lips, managing to make the sound more obscene than usual. "I'm not much of an exhibitionist, but hey. If that's what makes you happy—"

He was cut off as the Batman shoved his face into the carpet for a moment, then reemerged, makeup smeared and mixed with blood and stray rug fibers. Jonathan nearly laughed, and then felt a hand tight on his arm, pulling him off of Harley. He looked down, saw Isley's hand wrapped there, noted the blood under her nails, and, upon being tugged, let himself be dragged to the other side of the room. She shoved him onto the couch, Nigma and the others gathering around her, Harley trailing in last.

"We need to talk."

Oh, _this _was going to be just wonderful.

* * *

AN: "How about a little fire, Scarecrow," is from _The Wizard of Oz._

Dr. Destiny is not a Bat villain, but he is an Arkham Asylum inmate. At least, in _Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth _and _The Sandman._ I'm not sure if he is in the regular comic continuity, but yeah. I love me some _Sandman _and I will homage it whenever I can.

The bit about the Joker's fighting abilities comes from a conversation I had while watching _The Dark Knight _with my family:

My Mom: …He doesn't fight very well, does he?

My Brother: He's an idiot.

Me: …Leave him alone, he's trying really hard!

This is what watching movies with my family is like. I sometimes love it, other times (_2001: A Space Odyssey_) it makes me want to throw things.


	22. Intervention

AN: Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

It wasn't that Jonathan wasn't grateful to his friends for coming to his rescue. He absolutely was; but the fact that they weren't letting him leave ruined the effect rather a lot. He wasn't opposed to leaving Gotham with his friends—safety in numbers, and all that—but he was getting the distinct impression that they didn't want him to leave at all.

And with three—four, if the Batman got involved—against one, they could very well keep him from getting out.

"Don't you think," he began, as levelly as he could, with a glance toward the Joker, "that this isn't the best time for a discussion?"

Isley sat down to his left, Nigma taking the right side. With the back of the couch behind him and Tetch and Harley sitting standing in front, he was effectively trapped. Great. "It doesn't matter if it's a bad time," Nigma said, taking Jonathan's hand and holding on tight. "We're talking."

He exhaled slowly, trying to keep it from sounding like the sigh he so longed to express. The Joker was less than ten feet away, currently restrained by nothing more than the Batman, which did not make him feel reassured in the least. He doubted he would have felt reassured even had there been three sets of restraints and a wall of bulletproof glass between himself and the clown. "Look, I know that you were worried," he began, "but you didn't need to be. I—"

Isley moved as if to slap him and was only stopped by Harley grabbing onto her arm. "Don't, Pam. It won't help."

"It would make me feel better," she hissed, trying to pull free.

"I know that. But it wouldn't change the situation."

Isley closed her eyes, took a moment to compose herself. Upon reopening them, Jonathan thought she still looked enraged, but Harley let her go. He flinched involuntarily, but the blows didn't come.

"Aw, and I was hoping for a catfight," the Joker muttered. He looked as far back as his current position would allow, to face the Batman. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to bet on the winner." His face was shoved back into the floor again.

"If you don't shut up," Isley said, in a quiet voice that still managed to carry across the room, "I'll cut up more than your face, you bastard."

He licked his lips when he raised his head. "Fine by me, Red."

It occurred to Jonathan that never in his life, even when he'd been affected by fear toxin, had he ever seen anything quite as terrifying as Isley's current expression. She shifted forward slightly, so tensely Jonathan was afraid she would leap up and tear the Joker to shreds at any moment, and Nigma put his free hand on her shoulder to hold her back. Nigma, he reflected, was one of the bravest men he'd ever met.

In another stiff, barely controlled movement, she turned to the Batman. "Could you gag him, please?"

Jonathan expected Isley to be ignored at best, vaguely threatened at worst. After all, they were criminals, though not as bloodthirsty or dangerous as the Joker, and currently all on run from the law. And the Batman didn't appear to be in the best of moods as it was.

So Jonathan was completely floored when his response was to look back at her. "With what?"

The Joker opened his mouth and was promptly pushed down once more. "Oy. This is getting annoying."

"Good," Isley snapped, sounding seconds away from breaking out of Nigma's grasp and throwing something at the clown.

Harley cleared her throat. "Could we _not _do this now? Please."

"Agreed." Nigma's hand tightened around Jonathan's, though not painfully. "Back to the issue at hand."

"That issue being what?" Jonathan asked, confused as ever but with the growing feeling that he would not like where this conversation was headed. Not that he'd like any conversation that kept him in the same apartment as the Joker, or slowed his progress in leaving Gotham, but this seemed like it was going to be very unpleasant.

"You."

He stared at Tetch. "What?"

"The issue," Harley began, sitting down on the arm of the couch. "Well, not the issue, I guess that's not the best word, but what we need to talk about, is you."

_Oh Christ. _"I don't follow," he said. It was an absolute lie, but he didn't care. Anything that stalled for time, long enough for the Batman to try something that would bring all the villains against him and give Jonathan time to leave.

From across the room the Joker laughed, face still buried against the rug although his head was no longer being held down. "It's an intervention, idiot. God, you people should have called A&E first, they'd kill for a chance to film this." He collapsed into another giggling fit, halted when the Batman stood, dragging a stunned Joker toward the bedroom doorway.

"Carry on," he said, before closing the door.

_The hell? _Unexpected didn't begin to cover it. He stared at the doorway for a moment, stunned, until he realized that the chance of Batman putting an end to this madness had disappeared. _Damn it._ He looked back to the others, still gathered around him, effectively pinning him to the couch. "Look, I know you're concerned, but—"

"Concerned is an understatement."

"Yes, and I realize that, but you didn't need to be. I'm fine—"

"You are not fine," Nigma said. Not argumentatively, or like he was trying to prove something, but flat, as if stating a fact. "You almost had your throat slit—"

"It wasn't."

"You almost had your throat slit," Nigma repeated, as if he hadn't spoken, "and what's more, you were willing to let the Joker kill you. In no sense of the word is that fine."

"You don't understand. It wasn't like that." And it wasn't. It hadn't been a suicide attempt, it had been taking a chance at freedom that had failed, and failing in such a way that he would have avoided suffering. But it ended with death, so everyone said 'suicide' without so much as a second glance.

"What was it like, then?" Isley asked. She was trying to keep her tone level, but he could hear undercurrents of anger and something else—anxiety, maybe?—in her words.

Oh, there was no point. They were never going to understand. "I was trying to get away. It was a bet; if he lost, I got away. It didn't turn out."

"Indeed," Tetch said, sitting down on the carpet in front of the couch.

"You bet against _the Joker_." Isley looked as if she was trying very hard to hold back a shout. "The very fact that you tried that shows that there's a problem."

"There isn't." He said it quickly, too quickly. He could tell by the faint glances they exchanged each other that they didn't believe him. Well, this night was just getting better and better.

"Jonathan." Harley looked pained, though whether it was from concern for him or upset at having to speak against the Joker, he wasn't sure. "You let him hold a razor to your throat without struggling at all."

"If I struggled, I would have been stabbed." Honestly. This was passing out of concern and into straight idiocy.

"And you already let him cut you," she added, pointing slowly at the cuts on his neck, keeping her hand a good foot away as if afraid of startling him. "Can't you understand that when we see things like that, it makes us worried for your well-being?"

Unbelievable. Just because she'd used to be a psychiatrist, she thought it was acceptable to sit here and analyze him. Harley had been declared every bit as insane as he was, and even if she hadn't, he wasn't about to trust the opinion of someone who'd fallen in love with a psychotic murderer. The fact that he'd done the same was irrelevant. He wasn't going to dignify that with an answer.

"It's not just that," Isley said, when it became clear they weren't getting a response. She took his left hand, above the bandages. "We've been worried about you for a long time, Jonathan. The cuts, and the starving, and—"

"I was off the drugs then. I've got them back now. It's not going to happen again."

"Maybe," she said, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping back. "But that doesn't change the fact that your emotions are completely screwed up and you haven't worked through…" she faltered on saying it. Jonathan was mildly surprised; of all the inmates, Isley was the most forward. He'd have thought she'd have no problem with saying 'worked through the time you were stupid enough to fall for the Joker and got the shit beat out of you,' or something similar. "Through…what happened in October. What's to keep you from deciding that you like hurting yourself and causing another serious injury?"

"Common sense." He wanted nothing more than to be out of this situation. He'd stopped caring about getting out of the apartment by this point; he only wanted this talk to be over. He was sick beyond reason of the 'you have a problem' speeches by this point, and coming from people he usually respected, this one was even more painful than normal. "I didn't have it then. I do now."

"That's debatable." Isley had muttered it under her breath, without meaning to, judging by the way she winced afterward.

His eyes narrowed. "Meaning?"

"You're mad."

"_I am not._" Tetch had likely only said it because Lewis Carroll didn't write out long, passive-aggressive accusations such as, 'I think you're not taking care of yourself as well as you could and would be relieved if you changed your behavior,' or some such nonsense, but he was past caring. As of late, it seemed everyone in the world over seemed dying to try and convince him that he was out of touch with reality, and he wasn't going to take it anymore. Especially not from four certifiably insane people. "I am not."

Nigma sighed, removing his hand from Isley's shoulder to massage his temples. "Jervis, why don't you…" he paused, casting for an idea. "Jonathan, do you have tea?"

As if he was going to remember the exact contents of his cupboards over a year later. "I suppose."

He nodded. "Jervis, could you make us some tea?"

Tetch nodded, seeming to decide it was best not to speak, and left for the kitchen.

"Jonathan, no one is calling you insane—"

"He just did."

"That doesn't count and you know it," Harley said, placing her hand on his shoulder. He pulled away and she didn't try replacing it. "What we are saying is that we're worried about you."

"I _know _that. And as I've said repeatedly now, don't be. I can take care of myself."

"Well, you haven't done a very good job of it so far."

"So I had a rough start." He tried standing, only to have Nigma and Isley pull him back down. _For the love of God._ "The point is, I'm fine now, and there's no use in carrying on this discussion. We're only wasting time. In case you hadn't noticed, the Batman is right over there." He tilted his head toward the bedroom, door still closed. "And any minute now, he's going to come back out and bring us all to Arkham. So if you insist on having a discussion about my stupid decisions as of late, I'd prefer to do it elsewhere."

The trio looked at each other, then back to him, expressions making him more uneasy than ever. "What?"

"Jonathan," Harley began, in the calm, quiet tone she'd always used as a psychiatrist. "We're not trying to get away."

"What?" For the first time since the conversation began, he was truly lost. Unless she meant…but she couldn't. No. Even for them, that was insane.

"We're going back to Arkham," Nigma said, voice echoing Harley's in that meant-to-be-soothing quality. In reality, it was anything but. "We didn't break out to run away."

It didn't follow. It simply didn't follow. He understood the words Nigma had used and the order they were in, but his mind was incapable of wrapping itself around that sentence. "Then what did you break out for, attention?"

"We broke out to get you." Isley tightened her grip, loosened it as he winced. "Because we care about your well-being."

_Fucking hell. _"You cannot be serious."

"Yes, we can."

He was going to be sick again. He could feel it. "I'm not going back to Arkham."

"Jonathan, you don't have to be afraid of the Joker. We'll all be there, and we'll be watching out for you. You're not going to get hurt—"

"I'm _not _going back to Arkham."

"You're going to be fine." Isley's hand was on him, stroking his hair, and he was too—disgusted? Angry? Frightened?—conflicted to push her away. "You don't need to be scared, we'll all be there to—"

"_I'm not._ I can't go back."

"Why not?"

How was he supposed to explain? There weren't words to explain it. Everything was falling apart around him, everything he'd ever known about the world. The hatred he'd thought he held for the Joker turned out to be not so simple after all, the way the Batman acted towards him and all the other criminals save for the Joker had been completely turned upside down, as had the way his friends were supposed to act toward him. Everything was going to pieces, and the only thing he was sure of anymore was himself.

And going back to Arkham, whether of his own free will or by force, would be admitting that there was something wrong with him. It would be saying he was uncertain of himself. And he couldn't do that. He _could not. _Because if he lost himself, he'd lose everything. He really would go insane. He couldn't. He'd rather die before he went back again.

"Jonathan?"

"I'm going to be sick," he muttered, leaning forward, pulling against the hands trying to hold him back.

"What?"

"I'm going to be sick. Let me up."

The hands were off him at once, though there were footprints behind him, concerned voices speaking words that he could hear but did not care to listen to, and then he was in the bathroom, vomiting up acid because there was nothing else left inside. He felt himself sink to the floor, felt tears come to his eyes that he couldn't hold back. _If they take me back, it's going to kill me._

* * *

AN: A&E is a television station with a show entitled _Intervention_, in which experts meet with families to stage interventions.


	23. Negotiations

AN: It's like a thousand degrees in my lounge right now, with the doors open. I'm not sure what's up with that, but I wish it wouldn't be.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

"Jonathan?"

He tilted his head back, forcing himself not to blink in an attempt to dry the tears out before they could leave his eyes. It didn't work. Of course. He'd lost control of everything else in the world right now, why should his body be any different?

"Jonathan?"

There was a hand on his shoulder and he stood, brushing it away. Contact from his friends, he noticed, was becoming every bit as painful as contact from everybody else. "It's…I'm…could I have a minute alone?"

Nigma and Isley glanced at each other, then back to Harley. She shrugged, looked him over as the others glanced around the bathroom. There were no windows, no door save for the one leading back into the hall. No chance of sneaking out when no one was looking. Yet they still looked unconvinced. Probably thinking that the mirror could be broken and used as a weapon, or something.

"Just a minute." He swallowed, hard, forced himself to say it. "Please."

"Are you sure you don't want someone with you?" Harley asked, still using that psychiatrist's tone. If his emotional state hadn't been such a whirlwind at the moment, Jonathan was fairly sure he would have been pissed off. If there was one thing he hated, it was being talked down to, and while he doubted that was Harley's intention, that's exactly what she was doing.

He shook his head 'yes,' wiping his face with the back on his hand, head lowered so the tears would be less visible. "Only for a minute. I just…need to be alone. Please."

She nodded, beckoning the other two to follow her out into the hall. Nigma lingered in the doorway, turning back to face Jonathan. "When you're ready to talk, we'll be right out in the hall, all right?"

He gave another nod, feeling that a 'thank you,' 'okay,' or something similar would be appropriate at the moment but unable to make himself say it. It was hard enough to keep from sobbing as things were. Nigma watched him for a second longer, before walking off, shoulders heaving as he did as if holding in a sigh.

Jonathan let him get about five steps from the door before slamming it shut and locking it.

He leaned against the door. There was no way, he knew, that this was going to accomplish anything. There was no way out, and while he might have water, there was no food and he was starved enough as it was. He supposed if he really wanted to avoid Arkham he could smash the mirror and slit his throat with the glass, but it didn't seem worth the effort. Already there were slams against the door and yelling from the outside, and if they heard the sound of broken glass, they'd break down the door in a heartbeat. He hadn't achieved anything, besides prolonging the inevitable and angering everyone else.

Still, putting a barrier between himself and the rest of the world gave the slightest sensation of being in control again, and he was going to hold onto that with all he had.

* * *

The moment the bedroom door was closed, Batman threw the Joker onto the floor, pinning him down with a boot against the back as he pulled the blankets of the bed that hadn't been vomited on. Bed sheets didn't work nearly as well as a rope would, obviously, but he was able to hogtie the clown fairly tightly. The Joker would likely be able to get out—no method of restraint seemed to hold him for long—but it would take effort, and he could put a stop to it if it began.

"Why does it not surprise me," the Joker asked, rolling onto his side to face him, "that you're into bondage?"

He didn't dignify that with a response.

"No_t _the best position to choose, I'd have to say." He rolled again, onto his back. The added pressure of having his limbs underneath him couldn't have been pleasant, but if he felt discomfort, he didn't show it. "If I were you, I'd have gone with something Japanese…karada, maybe. Yeah, that's a good one. Anyway, _this_ position runs the risk of asphyxiation, but hey. Maybe you're into that."

"Enough."

"I _quite _agree. Never was one for foreplay myself, much." He noted Batman's less-than-amused expression and laughed. "You really can't take a joke, can you?"

"I can when they're funny."

The Joker pouted. "Now you're just being mean. You can't just go dashing people's ambitions like that, Bats, it'll give 'em issues." His eyes moved toward the door as he chewed on one of the scars. "Speaking of _issues, _aren'tcha worried about the uh, Leigon of Doom out there?"

"No." They weren't going to leave. Of that he was certain. If they'd broken out to find Crane and then return to a life of crime, they would have made a break for it when Batman was distracted with containing the Joker. The fact that they were still there meant that, unlikely as it seemed, they wanted to go back to Arkham.

He wasn't sure why it surprised him that the villains were holding an intervention. Criminal or not, it seemed everyone felt affection—_Well, maybe not _everyone, he amended, glancing at the clown at his feet—and it's not as if protecting a friend absolved people of their misdeeds. But even so, the fact that they were willing to go back to the asylum themselves to make sure Crane went stunned him, slightly.

Well, that wasn't the point. At the moment, the other rogues were under control and the issue at hand was dealing with this scourge on humanity. As his luck would have it, Jonathan Crane had been absolutely right about his safety where the Joker was concerned, and the doctor could not be returned to Arkham until this disaster was dealt with. Which was where he needed to be—anyone who initiated what was essentially Russian roulette with the Joker needed psychiatric help, badly. The whole poisoning people thing didn't help either.

"Soooo…you brought me back here and tied me up why, exactly? "Cause lemme tell you, if you're thinking what I'm thinking, you really should have bought me a drink first."

"You're going to stop this."

"Stop what? You gotta be _specific,_ Batsy. The flirting, the breaking out, the attention seeking, the attempted murder, the weapon stealing, what?" He shifted uncomfortably, and Batman got the feeling he'd been counting off on the fingers pinned underneath him.

"Crane never sought out my attention, and you know it."

"Doesn't matter. The point is, he got it. So he's getting torched."

Bruce closed his eyes for a moment, reminding himself that kicking the Joker in the throat would get them nowhere, even if it would be inordinately satisfying. It wouldn't be inordinate anyway; the Joker would likely ruin the effect by enjoying it. "He broke out because he was afraid you would kill him. Before that, he broke out because you broke into his cell to torment him."

"I gave him a rose." The Joker rolled his eyes, still shifting. Batman guessed that beneath his body, he was trying to undo the sheets and used his foot to push the clown back onto his stomach, exposing his hands and putting a stop to the attempt. "Most people like flowers. How was I supposed to know he'd flip out and start slicing people to ribbons?"

He wasn't going to respond to that. "Both breakouts were a direct result of threats on your part. The only reason he's getting my attention is because he broke out." He wasn't sure why he was bothering. Trying to reason with the Joker was about on par with trying to reason with a rabid dog.

"Meaning that if I backed the hell off, we wouldn't be having this little, uh, dilemma, eh?" Batman could no longer see his face, but he could tell from his tone that he was smirking. "Hate to break it to you, honey, but there'd be no fun in that."

"You're supposed to be an agent of chaos. Revenge is not chaotic."

"It's _not _revenge, Bats. Not anymore, anyway." He sounded almost thoughtful on the last part, pausing before he continued. "I mean, he _wants _me to kill him, or he wouldn't have tried the game."

"He's insane."

"So am I, and you're trying to reason with me."

This was accomplishing nothing. Logic wasn't going to appeal to the man, and he knew better than to try an emotional argument. "If you don't stop, I will never give you attention again."

"How's that?"

"Your crimes. Or anything you do to make yourself noticed. I'll stop responding. You'll be the only criminal in Gotham I don't care about."

He went into such a laughing fit that he was practically convulsing. "Oh, you wouldn't dare. First off, I'd kill off all the competition, and second, I'd be awful enough to your precious city that you'd _have _to stop me."

"Then I would stop you. But I'd do it without ever coming into contact with you. It's not hard to stop your men, unwire your explosives, and then seal the entrances and point the SWAT team to your location. Or shoot a net at you from a distance and leave you tied up for the police to find. I'd make it my main goal. Stopping every crime you try to pull, but you'd never see me."

"I don't believe that for a second."

"Do you care to test it?"

The Joker rolled back onto his side, opened his mouth to respond. And was cut off by the sounds of shouting from the hall outside.

* * *

Jervis's respect for Jonathan rose the instant he found the tea cabinet. Most of the kitchen had been bare, excepting for the occasional can of soup or package of Ramen, but this cabinet had been stocked from top shelf to bottom, and what's more, Jonathan used loose leaf tea. That had always been Jervis's preferred method; he'd take the tea bags if nothing else was available—such as at Arkham—but the loose kind was far superior, as far as he was concerned.

And there was a teapot. Jervis could have kissed the man, though he doubted that would end well, given Jonathan's current state. Not that he would have taken it well under any circumstances. Jervis could tell by the way he tensed every time someone lay a hand on him that he detested physical contact and only just tolerated it from his friends. That was beside the point, anyway. Perhaps water boiled in a microwave was no different than water boiled in a teapot, but Jervis was of the mind that the only decent tea came from the latter. That was the reason so many held tea in such low regard; they'd never had a good cup of the stuff.

He set the pot on the stove, leaving it to boil as he considered the options. And to think Jonathan had said he 'supposed' there was tea. The man had enough to supply an army, were an army capable of sustaining on only tea. He was partial to the rosemary himself, but given Jonathan's current state, it was likely better to go with the chamomile.

He sat that out and went looking for the teacups. Upon discovery, they were somewhat disappointing; a disorganized set that didn't match. Still, they were all clean and in one piece, which he supposed was all one could really require of a teacup. Jonathan couldn't be trusted with one at the moment, of course; firstly, it was breakable, and secondly, the man was still shaking as if he'd come face to face with a Jabberwock, he'd spill the cup's contents all over himself. No, he'd have to find a water bottle, or something akin to it. In Jervis's opinion that was no way to enjoy tea, but the situation allowed for some disruption of ceremony.

He was searching for that kind of glass when the shouting started. Deciding it was best not to get involved without knowing the situation, he made his way to the door of the kitchen and stopped there, listening into the hallway. It appeared Jonathan had locked himself in the bathroom. Unsurprising, honestly. Whose idea had it been to leave him unsupervised? Had he been there, he would have advised them against it. Of course, people tended to go selectively deaf when he spoke, unless they were familiar with the genius Lewis Carroll. And even then, he was often ignored.

Much as he loved his friends, he had the sense to realize they were absolutely clueless about some things, this intervention being one of them. He supposed being detached from the conversation gave him an insight the others were lacking. This insight being that this was not the way to go about things, and likely to make the situation worst.

Well, then, it was up to him to fix things, wasn't it? They wouldn't be happy, but it wasn't avoidable. If things carried on this way they'd break him in a way that even the best butter couldn't fix, whether it was free of breadcrumbs or not. He pulled from his pocket the cell phone that they'd taken from the car, clicking buttons until he arrived at 'compose a text message.'

_I do hope I still remember Leland's number._ If not, he supposed some stranger was about to receive a very confusing text.

* * *

"Open the door, Jonathan." Pam didn't shout it, but she might as well have. It occurred to Edward that this was unlikely to help matters, but trying to tell her that would be asking to get hurt.

"No."

"Stop being an idiot."

Ah, and right there went any attempt at diplomacy, right out the window. It really would not improve negotiations by insulting the narcissist.

"I could say the same to you."

Pam looked seconds from tearing the door off its hinges. While kicking the door had gotten them into the apartment, he doubted it doing it again would improve Jonathan's temperament now. Edward risked grabbing her arm before she could start shouting, and by some miracle was not struck in retaliation. "He doesn't mean that. He's only saying it because he's confused and scared."

"And an idiot," she muttered. "Jonathan, you can't stay in there forever."

"I can try."

"I give up."

Edward sighed, stepping closer to the door so he wouldn't have to raise his voice to be heard inside. "Jonathan, I know that you don't like Arkham. None of us do. But that doesn't change the fact you need to be there. Look, we're going back with you, you don't have to be afraid."

"I'm _not._"

"You locked yourself in a bathroom." As if Jonathan couldn't see that for himself.

"Not because I'm _afraid._"

_Right. _"All right. The point is, you're not taking care of yourself and it's where you need to go until you've got things back under control."

"I disagree."

_Christ. _This was about as effective as trying to use logic on a six year old. "I understand that. But we're going to take you back, so you might as well open the door and—" He caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and stopped, turning his head.

The Batman was coming down the hall, carrying the Joker. The Joker, despite being hogtied, didn't seem to mind it, at least until he was dropped, unceremoniously, at Harley's feet. He winced, clearly out of disappointment as opposed to pain. "Hey, Bats, I thought things were just about to get good."

"Watch him," the Batman ordered a stunned-looking Harley, walking around Pam and stopping in front of the bathroom door.

Edward tensed. "What are you going to do?" Charging in there and tackling Jonathan was not going to be a good thing in the slightest, but he doubted he could stop Batman, no matter how much he wanted. His strength lay in riddles, not brute force.

"I'm going to talk to him." Edward had just enough time to register that the Batman's voice wasn't as harsh as usual, before he shoved the door open.

In movies, people breaking down doors usually shoved with their shoulder above the lock. In real life, that was rarely done, and didn't accomplish much beyond hurting the person trying. Usually, the door was kicked open, above the lock, like Pam had done, and even then it often required a crowbar or something else to break through. They were just lucky that the apartment was cheap.

The Batman, however, appeared to be of that class of ridiculously powerful human capable of shoulder-shoving the door open, and he did, disappearing inside as Edward and the others watched, too shocked to move.

* * *

AN: Karada is a style of Japanese rope bondage that involves tying a rope in a web around the body. You can see a picture of it on Wikipedia if you search "body rope harness." The picture does not contain nudity, but be warned that many of the pages that link off of it do.

The Legion of Doom is from _Challenge of the Super Friends, _led by Lex Luthor and compromised of villains from several different comics. The Riddler, Scarecrow, and Solomon Grundy were the Batman villain members.

Chamomile tea is a mild sedative. The Jabberwocky, sometimes referred to as Jabberwock, is a monster in Lewis Carroll's _Through the Looking Glass._ Using the best butter to fix things is from _Alice in Wonderland_, when the March Hare tries to fix a pocket watch with it, and the Mad Hatter says it likely didn't work because of the bread crumbs in the butter.


	24. Discussion

AN: Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

The bathroom was empty.

At least, it appeared that way at first glance. He closed the door behind him, scanning the room. There were no exits other than the one he'd come in through, and the shower was empty. Unless Crane had gained the ability to walk through walls, he had to be in here somewhere.

"You broke my door."

He turned, looked under the sink to where the cabinet doors stood open. Jonathan Crane sat huddled inside, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them, looking up at him with wide, bright eyes. He didn't seem to be shaking quite as badly as he had been, but Batman wasn't sure if that was the result of the side effects wearing off or of the Joker's absence.

"Yes." For a moment he stood, watching the other, praying that breaking the door wouldn't lead to hysterics the way stepping on Crane's glasses had. It didn't.

Crane's only response was to glance back to the door and mutter, "Good thing I don't actually pay for this place." Bruce wasn't sure if he was being addressed or if the doctor had started talking to himself again. He hoped it was the former.

He knelt down on the tile floor, bringing them to more or less eye level. His movements were slow, and he was careful to keep his distance from the cabinets so that Crane wouldn't interpret the action as a hostile motion toward him. Not that it mattered. He still flinched back, shaking harder for a moment. "Don't touch me."

"I'm not going to. Not unless I have to. Can we talk?"

"I don't have a choice, do I." It wasn't a question.

"I can't make you answer me." Well, he could, but it would serve no purpose, and make the situation worse besides.

"I doubt _that_." He shifted back slightly, before hitting the wall behind him and realizing he had nowhere else to go. "But you're going to talk _at_ me regardless, I take it?"

"Yes."

Crane looked as if he wanted to ask why, but didn't. Silence fell between them again, both scrutinizing the other's expression. Crane likely out of confusion and curiosity, and Bruce because he had no idea which way to steer the conversation to avoid making things worse. Not toward Arkham, obviously; every time Arkham was mentioned the doctor's temperament went from surly and nervous to terrified and enraged, but he couldn't think of a discussion that wouldn't lead there.

"Why are you under the sink?" he settled on, finally.

"Why not?" He hugged his arms tighter around himself, in a self conscious way more befitting a preteen girl than a grown man. "I like it down here."

Silence again. Bruce could relate, having hidden in the cabinets of Wayne Manor more than once growing up, but it wasn't as if he could say that now. Besides, he doubted mentioning a past security blanket would help matters. Knowing Crane, he'd probably convinced himself that there was a perfectly logical reason to be huddled down there, and mentioning it as a coping mechanism would only insult him. He tried not to sigh, part of him wondering why he didn't just knock the man out and be done with it. Of course, trying that when Crane was in this state could very well give him a heart attack.

"How's your hand?"

Crane blushed, then did a rather bad job of trying to hide it by ducking his head down. He lifted the left hand, staring at the stained bandages. "I think it stopped bleeding." He took hold of the bandages with the right, straightening up as he lifted them to look.

"You should leave those on."

"What's the use? They're not sterile anymore."

"It's better than nothing."

He shrugged, but left the bandages on, albeit tightening his fist in a way that almost certainly started the bleeding up again. Because no criminal could ever just take his advice without making a snide remark or subverting it to prove some kind of point. Even at their own expense. "What difference does it make to you, anyway? If I give myself permanent nerve damage, it'll make it that much harder for me to fight and that much easier for you to win."

The way he said 'win' made it sound as if he was talking about a game as opposed to a fight. Bruce couldn't help but shake his head at that, despite his best efforts to the contrary. "You still don't believe I'm not trying to hurt you?"

"Not all of these scars are self-inflicted." Crane looked away again. "Not to mention the brain damage. Though I'm sure you've some lovely little excuse to absolve yourself of that."

"I stopped the Joker from killing you." Twice, he didn't add, with no assistance from Crane either time.

"You also put the idea back into his head to use the flamethrower. Thanks so very much." He paused, eyes going even wider as he glanced toward the door. "Where is he now?"

"Tied up. Your friends are watching him."

He still looked terrified, but the shaking had stayed level. "Tied up with what?"

"Your sheets."

The frightened look was immediately replaced with a sulky, petulant one. "And now I'll have to burn them." Then, almost as an afterthought, "I liked those sheets."

He wasn't sure why it surprised him, that the defilement of his bed sheets was every bit as important to Crane as his own life. On one hand, it fit the doctor's personality perfectly, but on the other, he'd have thought that even to a psychotic, life might trump home décor. "You could always wash them." Not that he'd have the chance; Bruce was sure he wouldn't be allowed to bring them to Arkham.

"No. It wouldn't be the same." Crane almost smiled, then seemed to remember who he was talking to and caught himself. His expression shifted again, the standard mix of fear and anger returning, but with a bit of what Bruce took to be confusion. "Did you mean what you said?"

"About what?" He was careful to keep his voice level, going for a rasp as opposed to a growl. If Crane was beginning to believe him, about anything, he couldn't undo it by adding to his fright now.

"When you essentially called the Joker pathetic for tormenting me."

Would a yes be taken as a good thing or a bad thing? "Yes."

He couldn't tell how Crane took it; aside from looking somewhat more confused, his expression didn't change. "Why do you care?"

This again? Their conversations were like walking in circles, really. "I don't want you to get kil—"

"No, I understand that." A pause. "I guess." He looked to the side, like he was unsure of how to say it, hair hanging in his eyes. "What I mean is, why single out this as pathetic? Out of all he's done."

"Because when he does things…" Hm. What did make it worse—no, not worse, just pathetic in comparison—to any of the other horrific things the Joker had done? Ideally, no one life should take precedence over another, but to be honest with himself, none of the Joker's crimes had ever been worse than Rachel's murder. Certainly threatening Crane wasn't worse than that. And though it hurt to admit it, given that he was supposed to be an unbiased defender, even _killing _him wouldn't be worse than that.

Not to mention the countless lives that would have been lost had the ferries blown up. Or all those slaughtered in the massacres at Gotham General and Arkham Asylum last October. No, of all the Joker's crimes, this didn't come close to being the worst, but it was, in a way, pathetic. The Joker justified his actions by calling himself an agent of chaos. All of his plans were either random, chaotic acts, or an attempt to upset the balance of things. Revenge was not random. It was beneath whatever sick standards the man had. "Because what he's doing now isn't chaos."

"Just pathetic?" He looked relieved, almost. As if just knowing the attack against him was completely idiotic had been enough to brighten his day. That, or realizing he wasn't alone in the belief that the Joker's actions were pointless, unfair. He was shaking less again, barely enough of a difference to be noticeable, but less.

Bruce wondered how much of the shaking was a side effect, and how much was psychological. "Everything he does is pathetic." And really, it was. Just a desperate attempt to prove that everyone else was as bad as himself, that the world truly was as awful as he saw it in his mind, over and over. Horrible, but deep down, pathetic. "This is…lower."

"And you mean that?" The look of relief was faded, his expression guarded, blank. Not terrified anymore, though. There was still fear that couldn't be hidden, despite his efforts, but he wasn't horrified. Hopefully, that would make things easier. He had a feeling that it wouldn't, though.

"Yes. What would I gain by lying?"

"I don't know. Trust?"

He almost laughed at that. _As if it was that easy._ "Because that would make you trust me?"

Crane shook his head. "I didn't say it would work. Just that you could try. But I suppose you're not that stupid."

"Thanks."

He gave a ghost of a smirk, that disappeared almost as soon as it had shown up. "Why are you doing this?"

"What?"

"_Talking_ like this. You're going to take me back, aren't you?" He stopped, swallowed. "To Arkham. You're going to take all of us back there."

He nodded, bracing himself for a violent reaction.

It didn't come. The shaking had picked back up again—so it was partly psychological, he mused—but beyond that Crane remained unchanged. "Then why talk to me? Why do you want me to…agree to come back on my own, or whatever it was you said? It would be faster for you to take us back by force, it would shorten the time we're out on the streets. It wouldn't take as much effort."

From somewhere in the apartment, a tea kettle whistled. Batman heard an increase in the speaking outside the door, still hushed and low, but more frequent. He thought he heard the Joker laugh, for a few seconds.

"Because I don't want to. I don't like fighting you." Well, most of him didn't, and he'd given his all to suppress the side that did. Being Batman couldn't be personal, the manner in which he took down criminals couldn't be vengeful, or he'd be no different than any other person disregarding the law for his own benefit.

Crane shook his head slightly. He didn't have to say that he didn't believe him; it was obvious. "I still don't understand why you want me to agree to go back. You have to know that's not going to happen, and every minute you spend with me is another opportunity for them," he jerked his head toward the door, "to escape. There are methods of subduing a person that don't involve fighting. Surely you know that."

"Yes." He wasn't sure how to explain it. Truth be told, he wasn't even sure _why _he was talking to him to begin with. Just that the point of Batman, as he'd told Crane the last time he brought him into Arkham, was to help everyone. Including psychotic narcissists cowering in cabinets. "But I don't want to. If I drag you back against your will, you'll just try to break out again. I want to avoid that."

Crane stared at him, silent, tilted his head. "You fascinate me."

"So you've said."

He blinked, looking lost as ever and more than a little afraid. "I have?"

"You don't remember?"

He gave the slightest shake of his head, going so stiff that he was barely trembling anymore. "You're not going to convince me to go back willingly."

"Maybe not. I said I _wanted_ to avoid taking you against your will, not that I would."

"You won't."

He shrugged. There was a knock on the door and Crane jumped, as well as one could for someone in a cabinet, banging his head in the process. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," he muttered, looking more annoyed than pained. "Come in."

The door opened, slowly, and Jervis Tetch entered, carrying in his hands a tray empty save for a teacup and what had once been a water bottle but was now, judging from the color of the stuff inside, full of tea. He gave Batman a contemptuous look before ignoring him entirely and knelling down on the floor in front of Jonathan. "Take some more tea."

Crane gave a faint attempt at a smile. "I've had nothing yet, so I can't take more."

"You mean you can't take less." Smiling back, he handed over the water bottle, which Crane opened and drank from.

"Thank you."

Tetch nodded, taking in his friend's expression, which was still fairly desolate. "You won't make yourself realer by crying; there's nothing to cry about."

Crane, who could apparently make sense of that nonsense, nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Indeed." He stood, and fixed Batman with another glare. "Keep your temper." He said it like a threat, making Bruce feel all the more lost when he held out the teacup. He took it, vowing not to drink on the not-so-off chance the man had laced it with something toxic.

Tetch strode out of the room, closing the door behind him. Even with it closed, the conversation outside could still be heard. Not loudly enough to make out actual words, but loud enough to tell that it was rushed, nervous sounding. Like an argument. Whatever was going on, it didn't sound good. Which meant he'd have to speed things up in here. Which would go over like a lead balloon.

That was just the life he led.

"There's no sugar," Crane said, and he blinked, confused, before he realized the doctor was referring to the tea. "Honestly, it's bad enough that he'd trying to sedate me, but to do it without sugar…" he trailed off, as though the lack of sweetener was a mortal sin, too horrible to even be spoken of.

"They're worried about you."

"If you're trying to make me feel guilty, it isn't going to work. They shouldn't be worried, and it's not my fault that they're stressing themselves for no good reason."

_How can a person know so much and still be such an idiot? _He had no way to respond to that that wouldn't be taken as an insult, so he kept quiet. Crane didn't say anything either, so there was a moment of silence again. Batman just had time to register that the argument in the hallway seemed to have ended, because outside the door all was quiet as well, before there was another knock on the door.

"That had better be the sugar." Crane's tone indicated that there would be hell to pay should it be anything but sugar. "Come in."

The door opened, and it took Batman a moment to realize who he was looking at. Once he did, it became glaring obvious and he felt like an idiot for not recognizing her before, but it wasn't that strange. He'd never seen Joan Leland without the setting of Arkham Asylum behind her, and he certainly hadn't been expecting to see her here.

She gave him a nod, with a casualness that may or may not have been feigned. The Arkham staff did see him more than almost anyone else, outside of the GPD, but then, he wasn't sure if anyone ever really adjusted to associating with a man dressed as a Bat. Either way, it became clear that he was not the focus of her concern when she sat down beside him, turning all of her attention to Crane, who looked every bit as perplexed as he felt.

"Hello, Jonathan," she said calmly, as if she came to visit escaped psychotics every day. "Can we talk?"

* * *

AN: So I really need to stop writing chapters in my dorm lounge. I swear, every time I'm just a few pages from done, someone turns on an awesome movie or show or something and it slows me down. Today it's _Shrek. _I'd forgotten how much I like that.

As always, Tetch's lines are from Lewis Carroll. Honestly, I'd be better off just listing the times that they're not. Which so far has been never.


	25. Therapist

AN: So, I love the world right now. I just found out I have fans I didn't even know about, all talking about how much they like my stuff on Livejournals I've never posted on. I love you guys. You make me feel so wanted.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

There was a moment where everyone sat there, staring at each other without speaking. Or rather, Leland and Crane stared at each other, and Batman was left looking back and forth between the pair, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.

Crane had no idea either, it seemed. He'd suspected that, from the doctor's expression, but it was verified when he finally responded. "How did you know I was here?" He sounded beyond irritated, and he'd all but stopped shaking.

"Jervis called me. He's worried about you." In contrast to his annoyance, she stayed calm as ever, despite sitting next to a vigilante outlaw and across from an agitated psychotic, while other criminals were presumably still waiting outside. Bruce couldn't decide whether to admire her dedication to helping her patients even in such ridiculous circumstances, or wonder if she wasn't a little insane herself.

Probably the latter. If Jonathan Crane and Harleen Quinzel were anything to go by, psychiatrists at Arkham weren't the most stable people. The pay there must be fantastic, to keep any employees.

Crane's annoyance lessened for a moment, replaced by confusion. "He spoke to you? Coherently enough to give an address?"

"Texted, actually."

"Oh." And the irritation was back. His moods seemed to change about five times a minute, even when medicated.

"So, can we talk?"

For a moment, Batman thought Crane was going to shout at her. Then he caught himself, with a glance out of the corner of his eye toward the Batman, and relaxed somewhat. Well, not relaxed, but pulled himself back under as much control as he had. "I would rather not."

Bruce felt mild, entirely inappropriate humor at the response. So his presence frightened the villains into being civil toward their psychiatrists. A sign that the fear as a weapon method really worked, but also slightly depressing just as it was slightly amusing. He supposed moral ambiguity was only to be expected in this line of work.

"Jonathan?"

He exhaled slowly, tensely. "Yes?"

"Would it be all right if I sat beside you?"

That's it, she was definitely insane. True, Bruce had also entered the room and started a conversation with Crane willingly, but at least he hadn't tried to get into a small, enclosed space with the man. That was just asking for either an attack or a violent outburst. Besides, he would never have fit under there, and increasing his proximity would definitely make matters worse. Leland stood a far better chance of having a positive effect by sitting beside him, but the odds of this being successful, to Bruce, were about as likely as Gotham reforming itself into a utopia to rival Metropolis.

Crane felt the same way, it seemed. "I don't know if you'll fit." His tone was barely controlled.

"I think I will, if you can. Is it all right if I try?"

He let out the loudest, longest sigh that Bruce had ever heard. Ironic, that when he was restrained from having a villainous temper tantrum his response was to react like a sullen child. "I suppose."

She made her way across the tile to the cabinet, pulling herself inside through the other door. She fit in easily, although she let her legs hang out. On the other side of the water pipes separating them, Crane started to shake a little again. "How have you been, Jonathan?"

He rolled his eyes, although he was able to keep from sighing this time. "I've had better days."

Leland glanced at his bandaged hand, his arms still hugging onto his legs. She was unable to keep a look of concern from flitting across her face when she saw the blood there, though it was masked almost immediately with the same serene happiness she'd be using since she came in. "Did you hurt your hand again?"

"Obviously." Upon speaking, he went rigid, eyes darting over to Batman. Expecting violent retaliation for his words, perhaps. "It's not bleeding anymore," he amended quickly, as if to make up for his sarcasm.

Bruce was surprised to find that it hurt a bit, knowing his enemies were so ready to believe he'd injure them for something that minor. So ready to believe he'd be as viscous and vindictive as them.

"Does it hurt?" The fingers of her own hand twitched, as though she wanted to reach out and touch him but had thought better of it.

"Not a lot."

She nodded. "Are you still hearing voices? Or seeing things?"

He blushed, lowering his head. Bruce imagined, briefly, what it would be like to have someone drag up your mental issues in front of your nemesis. Unpleasant, he guessed. Necessary, on Leland's part, but unpleasant. "No."

"Not at all?"

"Not hardly."

"Good." Her fingers made that twitching motion again. Bruce felt for her as well, though reaching out and touching a maniac was asking for it. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

He raised his head, turned to face her. "So what happened to everyone else? Are they on their way back to Arkham now?"

"No, they're still in the hall."

Crane blinked, tilted his head. "You came here without backup?"

"Yes. I didn't think it would help you to have orderlies breaking in and dragging you into a van." Batman noted the way her expression hardened slightly there. She was trying to hide it, and doing a good job, but doubtless she'd be hearing about this from the powers that be at Arkham. He was fairly sure that showing up to an apartment full of escaped inmates without backup or even notification was violating some procedure.

If Crane realized the risk she was taking, however, he didn't show it. "Are you insane?"

"No. I'm concerned for you."

And the incredulity faded to back to anger. "Like everyone else in the world."

"Don't be angry with your friends, Jonathan. They only want what's best for you."

"They don't know what that is."

"Can you understand why they're concerned?"

He tensed again. "Of _course _I understand why they're upset. I'm not an idiot, I've got a PhD too. I _hired _you, for the love of God. Yes, I know why they're concerned. Because I'm starved and I've been hallucinating. I understand that. And in anyone else's case, they'd probably be right. But I'm fine and I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself and I don't need anybody's help." The last sentence was rushed, as though he didn't quite believe it himself and wanted to get it out before he could start doubting things. This was one of the moments where Bruce would have expected Crane to glance up at him again, but he seemed to have forgotten he was there.

Leland reached out, moving her hand around the pipes and onto Crane's shoulder. Batman stiffened, ready to intervene should the need arise, but other than going rigid as the wood around them, Crane didn't react. "I wasn't trying to insult you. I only meant that you've been out of it for a while."

"Well, I'm _not _anymore." He shook his head slightly as he spoke, like a subconscious admission that he wasn't sure on that point.

"All right. I understand that. I'm sorry if I upset you." She stroked his shoulder and although he stayed tense, he didn't pull away. Not that there was much room to pull away to. "Jonathan, is this all right with you? The contact, I mean. You look uncomfortable."

"It's not…" He closed his eyes, shook his head. "Not entirely you. There's not a lot of room down here."

"Ah." Still, she pulled her hand back. "Do you want to come out? We could talk on the floor, if you want."

"_No._" When answering her contact question, there'd been a hint of uncertainty in his voice. That was gone now, the word coming out like steel. "I like it here."

"Okay."

"You can get out, if you want."

"No, I like this, too."

Crane sighed again, pushing his glasses back into place. "I'm not going to agree to go back to Arkham, you know."

Leland only shrugged. "Maybe you won't. But Jonathan, if your friends broke out once to come find you, what's to stop them from hunting you down even if you leave the city?"

"I can throw them off my trail."

She raised an eyebrow. "Even Edward Nigma?"

He glared, then glanced back to Batman and averted his eyes. "I didn't say it would be _easy. _But I'm going to do it."

"Jonathan…" she paused, took a moment to collect her thoughts and went on. "If your friends want you to come back and will stop and nothing to make sure that you do, wouldn't it be easier to prove to them that you don't need to be there?"

Crane stared. Bruce did the same. What was she suggesting?

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"You don't believe that you need to be in Arkham. So why not go back and show your friends and the doctors that they're wrong? If you can convince them that you're well enough to take care of yourself and not hurt other people, they'll appeal your sentence. And I'm sure Edward and Pamela and the others would be fine with your leaving, in that case."

He shook his head, still staring. "Because the doctors have ever believed me on that point before?"

"You've never shown us that you're all right, Jonathan. You've only said so and then ignored or frightened everyone away. What harm could it do you to try really responding, for once? If you're right and there's no reason for you to be there, we'll see that. If you're not, then at least talking to us will let us help you."

"I don't need help." He said it almost before she'd finished speaking.

"All right. If that's what you believe, why not prove it?"

"Joan, I'm not an idiot. I know exactly what you're trying to do. And even if I _was _stupid enough to fall for that, which I'm not, there remains the matter of the Joker." His eyes darted to the door and a shudder ran down his body.

"We'll find a way to deal with that, Jonathan. I promise." Despite that trying to contain the Joker was an exercise in futility and everyone knew it, her voice still sounded firm. "You don't have to be afraid of him. He's not going to hurt you anymore."

"Because I'm not going to give him the chance."

"Will you be happy, spending your whole life running from him?" She was trying her hardest to keep that level tone, but there was a hint of sadness there that she couldn't fully block. Bruce wondered what it would be like, to end up treating the man who'd formerly employed you.

"Happy? More than likely not. But alive? Yes."

"And what kind of life would that be?"

"Better than none at all." He shifted, crossed his arms, and glared at her when she placed her hand on his shoulder again.

"I would prefer it that your life be happy."

"Well, I would prefer that too, but that's not going to make it happen."

"Jonathan, please. You have to try."

"No, I really do—"

The doorknob turned and they all looked towards the door, which had opened slightly. For a moment the hall outside looked empty, and then the Joker stuck his head through, obviously no longer bound. "Hi. Can I borrow Jonny for a minute?"

* * *

AN: Another shorter chapter. Sorry. Then next will be longer.


	26. His Angel

AN: So, why is it that when I sit down, intent on writing the next chapter for this fic, I keep getting ideas for smutty little one shots? It is ridiculous. I'm asexual, I should not have this much porn in my head. Eventually I'm just going to have to make a fic for all the smut.

Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

_Shit. Shit shit shit. Mierda. Merde. Merda. _It didn't matter how many languages he thought it in, he was unable to get his mind past that word. Like a computer freezing up. Or a mantra, a defense mechanism to keep him from focusing on the slow, painful death he would doubtless be encountering very soon. Only not, because he was above things like defense mechanisms. Besides, if it was supposed to be one, it was failing.

Behind him, Leland reached around the pipes, grabbed his shoulders, pulled him as far back towards her as she could. Had he been in a generous mood, he might have thought this some misguided attempt to protect him. Currently, though, he was feeling anything but generous, and viewed the act more like using him as a shield. The only thing that had kept him from grabbing hold of her hair and slamming her head into the wall over and over again had been the Batman's presence. Somehow he didn't think that would go over well.

So instead he'd been forced to act grudgingly civil toward her like he usually did, as though he actually gave a damn about anything she had to say. Stupid bitch. Did she think he couldn't see through every trick she'd tried? It was bad enough that she'd had the audacity to come sit by him in the first place. As if just because he hadn't killed her when he'd had the opportunity to do so in October, that made them friends. That did it; if he ever returned to Gotham, he was going to kill her along with the Bat.

Right as he made that decision, the Batman leapt up, moving between the cabinets and the door so that Crane's view was blocked. Maybe they'd kill each other in the Joker's struggle to get inside. Good. Too bad he didn't have the best view. He tried leaning forward, but Leland held on tighter. Yes, he'd definitely become a shield. That, or Tetch had said he was suicidal or something ridiculous and she was trying to keep him from walking to his death. Idiot.

"How did you get out?"

"See Bats, the inte_rest_ing thing about hogtying someone is that the knot is right around the wrists." He didn't have to see the Joker to know that he was licking his lips. "You know, next to the hands. So you can untie it with almost no effort. _Told _you you should have used karada."

From what Crane could make out, he hadn't opened the door all the way yet. Odd, usually he came charging in with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. Well, that probably indicated that he was hiding some horrible weapon out of sight. Joy.

"What happened to the others?"

Crane felt a new wave of anxiety hit him, as well as what passed for guilt, as much as he could feel it. He hadn't even thought about the fact that Joker must have fought his way to the door; that the others could be seriously injured or dead outside. Just because he hadn't heard a struggle didn't mean one hadn't happened. Now the only friends he'd ever had could be dead, because they'd made a misguided attempt to save him. _I'm going to make him pay for that, even if it kills me. _He tried getting up again, only to be pulled back into place.

"Jonathan, don't. It's not safe."

God _damn _her. And damn him too, for starving enough to get to the state where such a small woman could hold him so easily. Why choose _now _to start actually being concerned for him? Which he doubted she even was; this was likely just another façade to keep her shield.

"_No_thing," the Joker said, singsong. A pause, then, "No, really. I didn't do anything, I'll show you. Can I come in?"

"Let him," said a voice from the hallway, which Crane realized, after a moment of confusion, was Nigma's. "It's fine, he won't try anything."

_Eh? _It was a meaningless thought, but at least his mind had broken the pattern of panicked obscenities. Lost as ever, he found himself glancing at Leland in spite of himself. She shrugged, confusion readily apparent on her face, and he used the slack in her grip to break free, trying and move forward to find out just what the hell was going on. She grabbed him again right before he could get out, dragging him backwards.

"Stay with me, Jonathan."

_Oh, when I kill her it'll be slow and painful._ "And if they need help?"

"Batman's there."

_Was that meant to be reassuring, you fool? _As if any of Gotham's criminals would be soothed by the Batman's presence. He was coming up with some suitably rude response when the Batman stepped back, allowing him to see what was going on.

The Joker entered the room, hands help up to show that he was weaponless—or at least, didn't have a weapon readily available. Behind him followed Nigma, holding in his hand the pistol Joker had dropped during the fight with Batman over Jonathan, barrel pointed at the clown's back.

_The hell?_

Leland, apparently, was also perplexed. "Edward, what's going on?"

Nigma blinked, scanned the room before glancing below the sink. Joker also noted their position and giggled. "The Joker wanted to talk. We figured this would be the safest way."

"You untied him?" the Batman asked, voice terrible enough to make Crane shuddered. Leland rubbed a hand over his back, and he fought back the urge to shout at her. Why couldn't he have had the sense to grab onto her when she first came over, use her as a hostage to get out of this mess? He could have slapped himself for that lapse in judgment.

Oh well. What's done was done, and it wasn't as if he'd been able to focus properly with the Batman less than three feet away, after all.

"Of course not," Nigma said, a contempt in his voice that Crane had only ever heard directed at the Joker. "He got loose on his own, but we were expecting that. We had the weapons trained on him."

"Where's the flamethrower?"

"Still in the hall. We thought it best not to have that in such a tight space."

Crane took mild offense to that. His bathroom wasn't that small. The apartment itself was tiny, yes, but the bathroom was actually rather large in comparison. Any bathroom capable of fitting two people under the sink would have to be.

"What about Pamela and Jervis?" Leland asked. "And Harley?"

"We're out here," Isley called from the hallway.

"Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself."

"Yeah." Harley's voice, the smallest he'd heard it since the night they got into a car crash, running from the Joker.

"What are they doing?" The Bat's question echoed his thoughts exactly.

"Watching Harley. She didn't take too well to seeing a gun pointed at him." Nigma tilted his head towards the Joker. "We had to tie her hands."

"With what?" Crane asked, finding his voice for the first time since they'd come in.

"Your sheets."

_Damn it._ No respect, there was no respect for his things. He wondered why he'd expected that there would be.

"What do you want?" Batman had moved out of his line of sight, but Crane could tell by his impatience that he was addressing the Joker.

In contrast to the Batman's terseness, Joker looked thrilled at being spoken to. "I wanted to talk to _Jonny_, Bats. It's sorta private…don't suppose I could convince you to step out for a minute?"

"No."

"Figures." The Joker let out a loud, fake sigh, glanced back at Nigma. "Can I sit down without getting shot?" Upon receiving a nod, he lowered himself, slowly, to the floor. "Hello, kitten."

"What the hell do you want?" Ah, and his sense of self-preservation had gone again. Had he not been so emotionally drained, Crane might have been sad to see it go. Frightened, anyway.

"Just to talk. God, you're paranoid." He shook his head, glanced at Leland. "You're taking him back, right? 'Cause he _really _needs it."

"Will you leave him alone if I take him back?" Leland asked, in the same forced calm she'd spoken to Crane with. _As if it fools anyone, _he thought, with a slight shake of his head.

"That's what I wanted to talk about, actually." He turned back to Crane, gave a grin of ridiculous proportions. "I've been thinking, and good news, scaredy cat, I'm not gonna try to kill you anymore."

He stared, as he'd been doing so often as of late. Like before, his mind recognized the words, but couldn't comprehend them in that order. Couldn't do anything but sit there, trying and failing to fire synapses.

"No, no, really, it's nothing, you don't have to thank me," the Joker said flatly, staring at him. "Way to be grateful, Jonny."

"Why on Earth should he believe you?" the Batman asked, sounding as if he didn't believe a word of it himself.

"Be_cause._ I'm giving him my word. I'd even do that whole pinkie swear thing, but I'm betting the Riddler here would blow my head off if I lay a finger on him. And I'm a man of my word, Bats. You of all people should know that."

"Your word means whatever you want it to mean," Nigma said. He sounded surprised; Crane guessed Joker hadn't told them the specifics of what he'd come in here to say. "And yes, I'd shoot you."

The clown sighed, for real this time, rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll promise in a way that I can't twist, all right? Jonathan Crane, I give you my word that I will not try to kill you, or injure you to the point of near death just to stop right before things get fatal, or sneak into your cell or anywhere else you're at Arkham and hurt you, be it physically, emotionally, or mentally. 'Kay?"

For a moment he could only keep staring. "W-why?"

"Why what?"

"You _know _what." Great, now he'd talked back. He flinched, pushing himself further into Leland's arms by accident, but of course the blow didn't come. It wouldn't, not with a pistol pointed at the Joker's head. Crane had no doubt that the man was mad enough to kill himself to achieve things, but not for something as insignificant as this. It was one thing to be run over by the Batman in a battle of wills, quite another to get shot for slapping an ex. "Why did you suddenly decide to stop, assuming you're not lying?"

"I'm _not _lying." His tone stayed mostly friendly, as if he was speaking to a frightened child, but Crane didn't miss the hint of malice there. "And as to why." He ran his tongue over his lips, out of the corners of his mouth to brush against the scars. "Why did God create angels?"

Once more he could do no more than sit there, gaping. "What?"

"Why did God create angels?" He now sounded like he was speaking to a frightened, stupid child.

"What does that have to do with anything?" the Batman asked, before Crane could do it himself.

"It has to do with _everything._"

"To worship Him," Crane said, brows knitting in confusion almost strong enough to allay his anxiety.

"Yep." He smacked his lips on the p. "But what about humans? They were created after, and for the same purpose, weren't they?"

"…Yes?" Was there a point to this, or was it just the buildup to some terrible torture or mindfuck? He felt Leland's hand moving over his back again, and felt almost comforted, in spite of himself.

"So why create human life? He already had the angels. What made Adam and Eve any different?"

"Free will." Nigma said.

The Joker nodded. "Somewhat. They can choose whether or not to follow God, but they aren't called to sin in the same manner as humans. See, humans are tempted by earthly vices. Angels see God in all His glory and know He's the greatest of all. Angels are only tempted to become like God themselves; letting themselves be ruled by pride. Angels may understand Him better than humans, but their view is black and white; with or against and no middle ground. Know what I call that?" He waited, and when no one provided the answer, said, "_Boring._ And Jonny, you're my angel, see?"

He almost shook his head in disgust. "All that, just to tell me I've become boring to you?"

"No, silly. To make sure you understand, so you'll know that when I say I'm not gonna hurt you, you'll believe me. You're not gonna do that on your own, you're _way _too paranoid." He gave Crane a glance over, tsked as he shook his head. "See, you're my angel in more than just a nickname, Jonathan. I made you what you are." He lifted his hand, pointed to the scars sticking out from under the hem of Jonathan's sleeve. "I didn't cut those, but I'm why they're there. So they're nothing you need to be embarrassed about, you couldn't help it."

Crane hated himself for feeling relief at hearing that.

"But the thing is, Jonny, I made you exactly what you are. It took no outside influence, just me. And if you turn away, it'll only take me to bring you back, or me to decide to punish you for it. Just like Lucifer, your sin was pride. You thought your value to me was greater than it really was. Much as I love you, angel, that's boring. I need a person that's…" he pursed his lips, casting about for a phrase. "That's not _broken. _That won't grab onto me and ignore the rest of the world just 'cause I'm the first person to spark something in 'im. A human, not an angel. Someone who can listen to outside temptations and choose to ignore my word or follow me, or sit conflicted in the middle. You can't do that."

"I am _not _your creation," Crane said, going cold in Leland's grasp. "And you are _not _the only influence in my life."

"Honey, it would take a month maybe, at most, of my being nice to you to put you right back in my arms again. Hell, you were seconds away from confessing your love when I had a damn _razor_ to your throat." He smirked, expression softened after a moment, voice disturbingly sincere. "You're never going to be a challenge because you're broken. Don't be upset; you can't help that and I understand. I can break you more, or I can fix you, but you'll never fix yourself. And I need someone who can do that." His eyes flicked, briefly, in the Batman's direction. "Or try, anyway."

He stood, almost backing into Nigma and not seeming to care, holding his hand out to Crane. "So c'mon, angel. Let's go back, all right?"

* * *

AN: You know, I have no idea if the Joker is religious or not. It just struck me as an analogy he'd use, and I think he's got a bit of a God complex. When he was yelling for Batman to hit him with the Batpod in TDK, I'm not sure if it was because he was willing to be killed to make Bruce break his rule, or if he was insane enough to believe that it wouldn't hurt him.

Anyway, if all the religious talk offended anyone, I apologize. I was definitely not trying to push a viewpoint. I'm not even really religious.


	27. Contemplation

AN: Thanks for the reviews!

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He stared at the Joker's hand, unmoving. He should be feeling relief, he knew, that his life had been spared, but it seemed he was still drained of emotion, save for the steadily growing sense of disbelief. Whether it was disbelief at his luck or at the Joker's audacity of assuming they were on friendly terms again, he wasn't quite sure.

"It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt ya." He twitched his fingers, like he was beckoning a dog. "Why are you under there, anyway?"

He only stared, hoping someone would tell the Joker off for him the way they'd done throughout the conversation prior. No one did. Perhaps they were still too floored by his brazen, ludicrous explanation to say anything. His disbelief was slowly giving way to anger; anger that this bastard presumed to think the influence he held over Crane was that great. It wasn't. He refused for even a second to entertain the possibility that it could be.

"I think I'll stay here for the moment," he said finally, flatly, and then shut up. He didn't trust himself to say something that wouldn't ruin the Joker's good mood.

"You don't have to be scared."

"I'm not."

"Right. Look, Jonathan, I'm—" he cleared his throat, grimaced. "Serious. About everything. And I'm also not moving until you let me help you up, even if it gets me shot. Got it?"

He would have liked to test that, but like so many other things tonight, it hardly seemed worth the effort. Suppressing both a shudder and the urge to be sick, he slowly extended his hand, noticing as he did so that the shaking had almost entirely stopped. He wondered vaguely when that had happened. He certainly hadn't noticed at the time. It _couldn't _have been when the Joker was talking, of that he was sure, but he couldn't imagine the tremors lessening around Leland or the Batman either.

He didn't take the Joker's hand in his own; he couldn't bring himself to do that. He lost enough already, over the course of this miserable day, but if he gave into that it would be like truly going over the edge. Instead, he only offered his hand out, letting the Joker be the one to close the distance, make contact. He tensed when he felt the leather of the glove against his skin, but was able to keep from jerking away. Which was lucky, because the tense way Nigma was holding the gun out made him think if he had pulled back, one of them would have been shot by reflex.

He didn't know what he was expecting the contact to be like, apprehensive as he'd been in reaching out. Something akin to burning, likely, the way contact felt on fear toxin or laughing gas. Instead, it felt as it always had; soft, warming, and to his absolute disgust, mildly comforting. Not as much as Leland's hands had been, but somewhat. He was sick with himself, for reacting in that way, as if he was so desperate for human contact that even the Joker felt reassuring. Which he wasn't. He'd never needed human contact, and even if at some point he had, he'd taught himself to overcome it long ago.

He felt the Joker's grip tighten, standing as he was pulled forward. He nearly hit his head against the cabinet on the way out until he remembered where he was at the last possible second and ducked down. Once outside, he could hear Leland getting up behind him as he realized the Joker had yet to let go.

"Get your hand off me."

"Aw, _c'mon_." The Joker stared at him, eyes reflecting such hurt that had Crane not been desensitized last October to these kinds of tricks, he would have fallen for it. "Can't we be friends again? I mean, I never actually hurt you. Aside from the whole bone breaking, concussing thing back on Halloween, but really, you can't blame me entirely fo—"

"Off. Now."

"Let him go," the Batman and Nigma said together, each taking a step toward the pair. Afterward, Nigma blinked, looking surprised at what was surely one of the first times he and the Bat had ever been on the same page. Batman, in contrast, stayed focused, looking ready to tear the clown's arms from his sockets should he make things difficult.

He pouted, to the point where his expression went from believably forlorn to absolutely fake. "Fine." He let go, and Crane's sense of self-loathing was furthered when along with relief at the release, he felt longing, as if he'd wanted it to go on. Stupid bodily reactions. He felt less guilty over starving himself now, if this was how his physical form responded to things. "Happy? Now let's light this candle. It's Pizza Day at the nuthouse, and I'm not missing it."

"It's eight o'clock," Leland said, after a glance at her watch. "You've already missed it."

"Well, crap." Joker gave a glance around the room, sucking on the scars. "Could we, like, camp out here for a week then? I don't think I can adjust back to life at Arkham without pepperoni to ease the transition."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid you'll just have to try your hardest without it."

"Aw." He looked petulant for approximately five seconds, before his expression returned to normal and he turned to face Nigma. "Oy. Riddler. Go make Red let go of my girl. Nobody ties up Harley but me."

Nigma seemed, for a moment, like he was going to talk back, but wisely decided against it. He backed through the door, aiming the pistol at the Joker until he finally disappeared from sight. Leland followed after, pausing in the doorway. "I'm going to go explain the situation to your friends. Will things be all right if I leave for a moment?"

She was looking at Crane and the Joker, but the last sentence was directed at the Batman and they all knew it. Crane looked back, watched as the Bat nodded. Leland still looked apprehensive, but after a second's hesitation she exited as well.

_Hell. _Now that the madness had ended, for the most part, he remembered what his friends had set out to accomplish in the first place. Bringing him back to Arkham. He wondered if it was too late to start formulating a plan to escape. Starving or not, been through hell and back or not, even now he would give anything to avoid going back. The chances of getting out, with the Batman behind him, the Joker at his side, and his psychiatrist and friends in the hall, were astronomically low, but despite the futility of it, he was sorely tempted to try.

His sanity was the only thing he could be sure of, at the moment. The entire world had gone mad—the Joker's sudden switch from murderous rage to relative normalcy only underscored that fact—and he was the only person he could trust anymore. Himself, and Scarecrow, who was trying and failing inside of him to come up with a way out of this mess. It gave him a slight relief to know that Scarecrow wanted to get out as well; he was Jonathan's oldest, dearest friend, even when he'd been nothing more than the nameless interior monologue all people had, and knowing that he agreed the situation was madness was a comfort. He'd always trusted Scarecrow's opinions. If the voice in his head agreed with him, it was a sure sign he'd kept his hold on sanity, even through this ridiculousness.

Whereas Arkham would do all it could to undermine his sense of security in himself, and Crane wasn't sure how much longer he could take the gaslighting before it pushed him over the edge, and he honestly became the psychotic they thought him to be.

There was a hand against his back, suddenly. He almost screamed.

"Hey, Jonny?"

"What?" he asked, teeth clenched and hands in fists. He debated stepping away from the Joker, but figured he would only be followed. The Batman was watching, he knew, but had yet to intervene.

"You're not scared to go back, are you?"

"_No._" He looked towards the door, resisting the urge to make a break for it. It's not as if he'd get anywhere. The majority of the group was in the hallway, after all. He settled for stepping away from the Joker. Behind them the Batman tensed slightly but remained stationary when it became clear that he wasn't trying to leave.

Moving away accomplished exactly nothing, as he discovered when the Joker began poking him in the back. "I think you are."

"I hate you."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

"I know. Look, Jonny, running away from your problems is no way to deal with them." He was still poking him. Crane turned around, knocked his hand away. Or attempted to, anyway. The Joker grabbed his hand halfway through the swipe and held it so tightly he didn't dare try pulling away. Thankfully it wasn't the left hand, or the bones there would probably have broken again. "I mean," the Joker went on, as though there'd be no interruption. "Arkham's a pretty fucked up place. You probably don't need me to tell you that, given that you're one of the people who _made _it fucked up, but it's scary. Still, the self-proclaimed Master of Fear should have the guts not to run away from it."

He felt a vein somewhere over his eye throbbing as he glared at the Joker. Was the clown actually trying to be the voice of reason here? "Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it your goal to mess me up to begin with? That's what I gathered from the conversation where you called yourself God. Why would you want me to go back to a place that could potentially undo any damage you might have caused?"

"One, I never called myself God. I just used Him for purposes of comparison. Actually, I see myself as more of a Lucifer—"

"Unsurprising."

The Joker chose to ignore that comment. "Lucifer's the more interesting one. God, really, is just this selfish old man creating people to tell Him how great He is. And two, like I said, I can make and break you as easy as, uh, a kid with Play-Doh. On the off chance the madhouse did a damn thing for you, I could undo it with no effort should the mood strike me. But this isn't about me, it's about you." He paused, looked Crane over, sighed. "I may have just tried to kill you, but it doesn't mean I'm not concerned about you."

"Enough." He tried pulling away. It was every bit as painful as he'd guessed, and as fruitless.

"No, seriously." That same pained expression. "Scarecrows are supposed to be thin, not, uh, emaciated. If you starve or kill yourself or something, what am I gonna do for fun?"

"Ruin other people's lives?"

"I didn't ruin your life, angel, I made it all colorful."

He had no idea what that was supposed to mean and didn't care to know. "And what do you mean, for fun? I thought I bored you."

"Bored me?" His expression was blank for a moment. "Oh! The angel thing. No, no, no, Jonny, you don't bore me _per se. _I like you. I like you a lot." He reached out, nearly stroked Crane's face before the other stepped out of the way. "It's just you're not interesting enough to justify all the crap I'd have to go through, killing you and, uh, afterwards. Remember that time I told you that you mattered, just not as much? It's like that."

He had never felt such an overwhelming urge to hit someone, even though he knew it would have no effect. "I hate you."

"I understand that that's how you're feeling right now and don't you really mean that. Don't worry, I'm not upset. Though, angel, you oughta talk to Leland about your coping methods. Lashing out at others like this isn't healthy."

"Go to hell."

"See? That's what I'm talking about."

And Crane would have hit him, had Leland not chosen that moment to reappear in the room. For the first time since he'd known her, she had decent timing and he couldn't appreciate it because he wanted to punch the man so badly. Even though it would have no effect and likely get him laughed at, or injured.

"Can you take two of them back?" she asked, addressing the Batman. "My car only seats four passengers."

"I call Bats!" The Joker released Crane at once to raise his hand, waving it back and forth. "In fact, I'm not going back unless he takes me." He shot a glance to Crane as if to say 'so there.'

_And I'd be jealous because…why, exactly?_

"I'm not goin' unless I can be with Mistah J!" Harley called from the hall. Leland glanced to the doorway, then back at the Batman. He nodded, after a moment's pause.

Joker looked as if he might faint, he was so overjoyed. He was really like a child. A child who enjoyed hacking people open and causing panic for no good reason. "Hear that, Jonny? I'm riding in the Batmobile!"

"That's not what it's called."

"How wonderful for you," Crane said, in a tone of withering disinterest.

"Aw, c'mon Jonny. I thought we were friends again."

"I will _never_ be your friend."

"So you say." Before Crane could snap back, Leland's hand was on his sleeve, gently leading him toward the door.

"Ready, Jonathan? Your friends are waiting." He nodded, allowed himself to be led. The situation was miserable, but there was little he could do about it at present. Arkham wasn't that hard to break out of. He'd get around to it the second he wasn't starving anymore.

When the Joker half-shouted "Feel better!" at his retreating back, he didn't turn around.

When the Batman, who'd up until now been living up to the title 'silent guardian' very well, said "Good luck," however, he did turn. Leland noticed the movement and stopped, as Crane stood in the hallway staring at the Caped Crusader.

He wasn't sure why he'd stopped. It wasn't as if he felt grateful toward the Bat. Hell, half of this fine mess had been his fault. He may have stayed with him all day, and stopped the Joker from slitting his throat, but it was his fault the Joker had found him, and his fault Crane was going back to Arkham now. But the Batman seemed, in some strange, twisted way, to care what happened to him. Crane didn't think it was concern, more likely an extension of his rule against killing. But he wasn't quite sure. And he didn't know why he felt the need to acknowledge it, but he found himself giving the Batman a nod before he turned back, letting himself be taken back to his friends. Isley took him by one arm, Nigma by the other, and they all but marched him to Leland's car.

"It's all right," Nigma said, while Jonathan was fastening his seatbelt. "Don't be afraid, okay? They're going to help you."

That should have angered him, and on some level it did, but he found himself preoccupied by thoughts of the Batman, and curiosity regarding just what their connection was.

* * *

Batman regretted putting the Joker in the passenger's seat almost the second they'd taken off, but he wasn't about to risk pulling over with two maniacs in tow to readjust their seats. He'd thought cuffing the Joker behind his back and strapping him to the seat would be enough, but he'd forgotten just how strongly the man was driven to be as much of a pain in the ass as he possibly could. Every few seconds or so he'd try pushing buttons on the console with his feet, and Batman would have to intervene. Quinzel in the back, whining that she wanted to listen to the radio, wasn't helping either.

And as it turned out, the Joker hadn't been lying about the Tumbler being tagged. He didn't even want to imagine explaining to Alfred why there were random obscenities scrawled over the car's hood in various colors of paint. He didn't want to imagine how he'd explain _any _of the day's events.

Eventually, around the time the Joker got bored with trying to crash the Tumbler and kill them all, and began singing show tunes with Quinzel as a backup, he tried zoning them out, focusing on anything but the situation at hand. He found his thoughts returning to Jonathan Crane, and the conundrum that had been his latest experience with the mad doctor.

He'd saved villains before. The first being keeping the Joker from falling to his death, and more from there, usually from their own stupidity or from a fight move gone wrong. But this was the first time he'd ever saved one villain from another, or spent the better part of a day with said villain, protecting him both from himself and others. This was the first time a villain had ever come off as a victim, even though Bruce knew that Jonathan Crane was far from innocent.

He supposed it was only part of the job, just a part he hadn't experienced before. After all, a majority of the 'super villains' in Gotham qualified as insane, and it was easy to undermine a person's crimes when one was watching that person lose touch with reality, seem helpless. Crane may have been the first villain he'd had to protect for an extended period, but Bruce doubted he'd be the last.

Still, and it was almost certainly wishful thinking on his part, but he hoped protecting Crane had convinced the doctor that Batman wasn't out to hurt him. Or at least that he should stay in Arkham. Hell, he knew 'convinced' was shooting too high, he'd settle for having put any doubt in Crane's head regarding his delusion of sanity. He couldn't help but hope that something had changed between them over the day, and wish that Crane would see things the same way.

And then the Joker nearly made them crash again, and he was pulled out of his thoughts and back to the present.

* * *

AN: And it's done. The next story will be up as soon as possible, hopefully in one or two days. Though I'm going home for the weekend, which may delay the process somewhat, but I'll try my hardest. The next fic will be much, much shorter, but I've got a planned longer one after that.

"Gaslighting" refers to the movie _Gaslight, _where a woman is made to believe that she's going insane when she really isn't. Harley's comment about wanting to listen to the radio comes from the cartoon episode "Harlequinade," where she makes the same comment and then almost crashes the Batmobile by pressing a button at random.

Thank you all so much for your reviews! I could not have finished this fic without your feedback and support. I love you guys.


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